JOHN PARKER

Blue/Green Portal [14-102] (2014)

size (ø x d): 410 x 102 mm $650

Matt Black/Green Cone [14-107] (2014)

size (ø x d): 282 x 132 mm $515

size (ø x d): 306 x 65 mm $625

(2014)

Lime Green Cone [14-116] (2014)

size (ø x d): 184 x 415 mm $550

Matt Lime Portal [14-118] (2014)

size (ø x d): 390 x 97 mm $650

size (ø x d): 355 x 337 mm $650

Lime Green Dome [14-117] (2014)

Matt Blue/Black Zig-Zag Ring [14-122]

(2014)

size (ø x d): 298 x 125 mm $495

(2014)

size (ø x d): 390 x 95 mm $625

size (ø x d): 175 x 34 mm $395

(2014)

size (ø x d): 224 x 255 mm $475

size (ø x d): 232 x 44 mm $495

size (ø x d): 200 x 327 mm $495

Burgundy Cone [14-109]

Shiny Blue Ring [14-129] (2014)

Matt Blue Grooved Cone [14-110] (2014)

Burgundy Dome [14-120]

Matt Blue Portal [14-103]

Shiny Blue Ring [14-131] (2014)

size (ø x d): 190 x 53 mm $425

size

d): 329 x 45 mm $725

size

x d): 228 x 237 mm $595

Matt Blue Orb [14-112] (2014)

(ø

Matt Turquoise Portal [14-101] (2014) size (ø x d): 400 x 87 mm $625

Matt Blue/Black Ring [14-132] (2014)

size (ø x d): 219 x 53 mm $450

Matt Blue Ring [14-130] (2014)

Matt Blue/Black Zig-Zag Ring [14-121] (2014)

(ø x

Matt Blue/Black Grooved Orb [14-114] (2014) size (ø x d): 222 x 222 mm $550

Matt Purple Ring [14-128] (2014)

size (ø x d): 221 x 46 mm $450

Matt Blue Ring [14-124] (2014)

size (ø x d): 304 x 59 mm $625

Matt Blue Ring [14-127] (2014)

size (ø x d): 217 x 53 mm $450

Lime Green Ring [14-126] (2014)

size (ø x d): 220 x 85 mm $495

Matt Blue Orb [14-113] (2014)

size (ø x d): 218 x 203 mm $525

(2014)

size (ø x d): 295 x 118 mm $525

Matt Blue Dome [14-105]

Matt Black/Green Dome [14-106] (2014)

size (ø x d): 235 x 130 mm $495

Matt Blue/Black Cone [14-108] (2014)

size (ø x d): 162 x 463 mm $595

Matt Blue/Black Grooved Cone [14-111] (2014)

size (ø x d): 158 x 355 mm $475

Matt Blue/Green Dome [14-104] (2014)

size (ø x d): 353 x 124 mm $650

Matt Blue/Green Zig-Zag Ring [14-125] (2014)

size (ø x d): 319 x 50 mm $695

Matt Blue/Green Zig-Zag Ring [14-123] (2014)

size (ø x d): 329 x 57 mm $725

Assorted Vessels [14-141] [14-142] [14-143] [14-145] [14-144] [14-146]

[14-146] [14-147] [14-148] [14-150] [14-149] (2014), glazed ceramic

Matt Purple Cone [14-141] (2014) size (h x ø): 283 x 98 mm $375

Matt Purple Conical Necked Bottle [14-144] size (h x ø): 219 x 110 mm $395

Matt Blue Conical Bowl [14-146] (2014) size (h x ø): 202 x 143 mm $450

Matt Blue Conical Necked Bottle [14-143] (2014) size (h x ø): 295 x 170 mm $495

Matt Purple Conical Bowl [14-148] (2014) size (h x ø): 196 x 166 mm $450

Matt Purple Conical Necked Bottle [14-147] (2014) size (h x ø): 250 x 148 mm $395

Matt Mauve Cone [14-145] (2014) size (h x ø): 282 x 106 mm $375

Matt Blue Conical Vessel [14-139] (2014) size (h x ø): 325 x 130 mm $495

Matt Blue Conical Vessel [14-134] (2014) size (h x ø): 303 x 135 mm $475

Matt Lilac Blue Necked Bottle [14-149] (2014) size (h x ø): 250 x 125 mm $425

Matt Lilac Conical Necked Bottle [14-150] (2014) size (h x ø): 272 x 148 mm $625

Matt Lilac Conical Necked Bottle [14-142] (2014) size (h x ø): 215 x 135 mm $395

Assorted Vessels [14-133] [14-134] [14-135] [14-136] [14-137]

[14-137] [14-138] [14-139] [14-140] (2014), glazed ceramic

Lime Green Conical Vase [14-136] (2014) size (h x ø): 297 x 117 mm $450

Matt Blue Cone [14-135] (2014) size (h x ø): 312 x 106 mm $395

Matt Blue Conical Vase [14-137] (2014) size (h x ø): 322 x 140 mm $495

Lime Green Conical Vessel [14-133] (2014)

size (h x ø): 249 x 105 mm $395

Lime Green Conical Bowl [14-138] (2014) size (h x ø): 223 x 168 mm $495

Lime Green Cone [14-140] (2014) size (h x ø): 290 x 97 mm $375

Matt Green/Black Conical Necked Bottle [14-115] (2014) glazed ceramic, size (ø x d): 186 x 502 mm $850

“Parker’s career is characterised by a constant testing of the boundaries of ceramic art.” (1)

“… I’ve liked the idea of setting up rules. I’ve always loved this kind of mind-game. You can only make cylinders, cones and spheres. The more you limit yourself the more you create possibilities. My shows have always been about very simple ideas and concepts. But I don’t work them out ahead. The exhibition forms as I work. One piece leads to another. I’m interested in my work being seen as a coherent body, as a group.” (2)

“I really love setting up problems for myself and solving them.” (3)

The genesis of the new techniques and astute manipulation of variables evident in this new body of work occurred three years ago when a group of potters got together one Sunday at the Auckland Studio Potters Centre to test Cone 6 glazes. In that process, John Parker rediscovered his passion for glazes and testing.

“My new work involves using the chemicals cobalt and chrome as colouring oxides, rather than using commercially prepared stains. The differing base glaze compositions can affect cobalt ranging from deep blue, through mauve to purple and give lime greens, yellows and grape to burgundy from chromium. The results vary widely from firing to firing.” (4)

Parker’s well-known forms, remarkable for their formal resolve and technical perfection, become in Singularities noticeably painterly, delivering abstract minimalist concerns and spatial dialogues through the role played by the new glazes. These glazes are used thinly and as such are variable, unpredictable. The glazes enable the objects to assert a presence, whether wall-mounted or on a table-top surface, that is individual - with the negative space around becoming recessive in nature. There is still a clear and strong stylistic link to what preceded them – this is witnessed in the tonal variables and formal elegance, the descending, ascending and radiating rhythms of repetition, and in the fundamental minimalist aesthetic at the centre of all of Parker’s ceramics.

1. John Parker, John Parker: Ceramics, David Bateman Ltd in association with City Gallery Wellington, 2002, inside cover.

2. John Parker, interviewed by Jim Barr and Mary Barr in “Radiating Excellence,” John Parker: Ceramics, David Bateman / City Gallery Wellington, 2002, p. 15.

3. Ibid, p.16

4. John Parker, Singularities, Artist Statement

JOHN PARKER

b. 1947, lives Auckland

StillLifeforKeithandErnie8(2009-11)

“I subscribe to the well rounded aesthetic ideal, I guess. All the things I do relate, they are all visual. They all concern the drama of reactions to shape and colour and arrangement.” John Parker works as a potter, set and costume designer and film critic. He draws no distinction between his interests. “The same themes flow through your work and the same processes of stylisation, fine-tuning and attention to detail apply.” (1)

“When working in clay, I see myself following in the traditions of being just a craft potter. Each piece is hand-made and unique. I throw and turn all my work on the potter’s wheel. I make ware which is easily recognisable as the classical pottery vessel, bottle or bowl, but my special concern is to push the concepts of these as far as possible into severe minimalism and into the functional/non-functional debate to explore the very essence of defining these ideas. My forms and aesthetic, of the stark and the industrial owe more to the philosophy of the European design movements of de Stijl and the Bauhaus than to Leach and Hamada.” (2)

“His pots are beautifully formed, strongly based on simple geometry, they are elegantly glazed and crisply detailed.” (3) “For some years now Parker has been limiting his focus and simplifying his forms. In his search for refinement and perfection he now works purely in white porcelain.” (4)

"Shufflebotham had worked with the New Zealand designer Keith Murray at Wedgwood during the 1930s. There he had been a master thrower and key interpreter of Murray’s innovative, restrained and glacial domestic wares. When, in the 1940s, Shufflebotham found himself at Crown Lynn in Auckland, he produced a series of hand potted, turned and white-glazed works that were essentially a theme and variation on those he had thrown at Wedgwood. In the works of these two men, Parker discovered like-minded ceramic artists who thought across traditional boundaries and in doing so instituted the exchange of a distinctive modernist iconography particular to Britain and New Zealand. Parker began to add to that tradition, bringing to it his own set of references and experiences."(5)

Born in Auckland, New Zealand 1947. After some years studying in New Zealand and London, Parker graduated with a Master of Fine Arts, Royal College of Art, London in 1975. He returned to Auckland in 1977 and continues to live and work there.

Parker has been exhibiting ceramics since 1967. He now frequently has three solo exhibitions in New Zealand annually and also participates in local and international groups show in the UK, Italy, USA and Australia. Widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading ceramic artists, Parker has received numerous commissions and awards for his work including the prestigious Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2010. His work is held in major New Zealand public collections including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as well as many private collections in New Zealand and internationally.

1.ArtistsStatement,1994.

2.ArtistsStatement,2000.

3.HelenSchamroth,‘100NewZealandCraftArtists’,,Godwit,Auckland,1998.

4.BarryAllom,‘Urbane,stylish,allwhite’,ThePress,18November1998.

5.DouglasLloyd-Jenkins,'TheJourneyTowardsWhite',JohnParkerCeramics,DavidBateman,2002.

JOHN PARKER

b. 1947, lives Auckland

EDUCATION

1975 MA, Royal College of Art, London, England

1970 DipTech (Distinction) Auckland College of Education

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2014

2013

Singularities, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Singularities, AVID, Wellington

Black + White + Red, Piece Gallery, Matakana

The New White, AVID, Wellington

Black + White + Red, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland

Black + White + Red, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Positives / Negatives, Masterworks, Auckland

Attracted Opposites, AVID, Wellington

2012 Untested, Masterworks, Auckland

Negatives/Positives, AVID, Wellington

2011 RED, milford galleries queenstown

Shades of Red, AVID, Wellington

Testing, Masterworks, Auckland

2010

2009

2007

Black + White + Red, milford galleries queenstown

The Same But Different, Masterworks, Auckland

The Same But Different, AVID, Wellington

New Ceramic Forms, milford galleries queenstown

New China, Masterworks, Auckland

Diversions, AVID, Wellington

2006 Baubles, AVID, Wellington

Off White, Masterworks, Auckland

Superstrata, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Superstrata, AVID, Wellington

2005 Superstrata, Objectspace, Auckland

2004

Resurfacing, AVID, Wellington

Resurfacing, Masterworks, Auckland

New Artefacts, Milford Galleries Dunedin

Abstraction and Still Life, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2003 New Artefacts, Masterworks, Auckland

New Artefacts, AVID, Wellington

White Ware, Form Gallery, Christchurch Festival of the Arts

2002 John Parker Ceramics (Retrospective Exhibition), City Gallery, Wellington

2001

White Ware, Masterworks, Auckland

White Ware, AVID, Wellington

2000 Wall to Wall, Hastings Exhibition Centre, Hastings

White Ware, International Arts Festival, Wellington

White Ware, Milford Galleries Dunedin

1999 Twentieth Century Ceramics, AVID, Wellington

Twentieth Century Ceramics, Masterworks, Auckland

1998 99 White Bottles, Albany Village Gallery, Auckland

Functional Ware, Masterworks, Auckland

Functional Ware, AVID, Wellington

1997 White Ware, MIRO Gallery, Napier

White Ware, Masterworks, Auckland

White Ware, AVID, Wellington

1996 Recent Ceramics, AVID, Wellington

1995 New Work, AVID, Wellington

New Work, FORM Gallery, Christchurch

1994 Points and Penetrations, Masterworks, Auckland

New Work, AVID, Wellington

New Work, FORM Gallery, Christchurch

1993 Triptychs, Masterworks, Auckland

New Work, AVID, Wellington

1992 Window Dressing, Compendium Gallery, Auckland

New Work, AVID, Wellington

1991 Masterworks, Masterworks, Auckland

1990 Ceramics for the Modern Home, Compendium Gallery, Auckland

1986 Happy Birthday to Me, Real Time, Auckland

1985 Decorative Art, 12 Potters Gallery, Auckland

1984 12 Potters Gallery, Auckland

1983 Textures, New Vision Gallery, Auckland

1982 Pots of Ponsonby, Auckland

1981 Blackfriars Gallery, Sydney, Australia

New Vision Gallery, Auckland

Dowse Art Museum, Wellington

1980 The Craft Centre, Melbourne, Australia

Albany Village Pottery, Auckland

Domestic Wares, Alicat Gallery, Auckland

1979 Brooke Gifford Gallery, Christchurch

Blackfriars Gallery, Sydney, Australia

New Vision Gallery, Auckland

Media, Wellington

1977

1973

New Vision Gallery, Auckland

New Vision Gallery, Auckland

1972 Faenza, ITALY

Christmas Show, MEDIA, Wellington

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2014 The Royal Queenstown Easter Show, milford galleries Queenstown

2013 Collis/Parker/Collis, David Lloyd Gallery, Hamilton

2012 Significant Works, Milford Galleries Dunedin

2011-12 Collecting Contemporary, Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand

2011 Crown Lynn: Crockery of Distinction, City Gallery, Wellington

2009 Collis and Parker, David Lloyd Gallery, Hamilton

In Good Company, Skepski Gallery, Melbourne

2008 Down Under China, Arthouse, Christchurch

Reconstructing China, Masterworks, Auckland

2006 Beyond the Pale¸ North Art, Auckland

2004 Parker and Parker; Installation with Richard Parker, Object Space, Auckland

2002 Space, Fire and Form, Gallery East, Fremantle, Ceramic Art Gallery, Sydney, Shepparton Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia

1996 The Bowled and the Beautiful, Freemantle, Australia

Works in Progress (collaboration with Terry Stringer), Compendium Gallery, Auckland

1995 Clay and Architecture (Collaboration with Simon Carnachan), Fisher Gallery, Auckland Ceramics for the Year of the Pig, Masterworks, Auckland

1994 Collaborations (Joint show with Rick Rudd), Masterworks, Auckland

1984 Porcelain: 4 Potters, 12 Potters Gallery, Auckland

Clay and Glass, AZ ART, Arizona, USA

1983 Basic Black: Twenty Bowls, Denis Cohn Gallery, Auckland

1982 Weaver John Hadwen, C S A Gallery, Christchurch

1980 5 x 5, Denis Cohn Gallery, Auckland

1979 North Island Potters, Dowse Art Museum, Wellington

1978 Crafts New Zealand, overseas travelling exhibition

Porcelain 3, Alicat, Auckland

4 x 10: Four Approaches, Peter Webb Gallery, Auckland

1977 Oxford Gallery, Oxford, UK

Porcelain Show, MEDIA, Wellington

Porcelain 2, Alicat, Auckland

1976 Heals (with Ian Godfrey), London, UK

Upper Street Gallery, London, UK

Third Eye Gallery, Glasgow, UK

Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast, UK

24 British Potters (travelling show) USA

1975 Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK

Oxford Gallery, Oxford, UK

Christmas Show, Goswell Road Workshop, London, UK

Faenza, Italy

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales, UK

1969+ New Zealand Society of Potters Annual Exhibitions

With Grant Hudson, Upstairs Gallery, Hamilton

1967+ Auckland Studio Potters Annual Exhibitions

AWARDS & COMMISSIONS

2014 Artist Residency, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

2010 Arts Foundation Laureate Award

2009 Winner of Portage Awards, John Green Waitakere Artist Award

2007 Winner of Portage Awards, John Green Waitakere Artist Award

1999

Awarded Waitakere City Millennium Medal for services to the Community Commissioned Installation for Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for Embassy Chancery, Jakarta Commission for Noel Lane - Architect, Auckland

Commissioned APEC Leaders Gift presented to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Commissioned Installation for Chapman Tripp Foyer, Wellington

1998 Birkehead Licensing Trust Award

Royal Easter Show Western Potters Award

1995 Merit Award, Royal Easter Show Pottery Awards

Merit Award, Hume Gas Award

1989 Awarded Major Creative Development Grant by QE2 to research glaze technology & UV light

1985 Merit Award, Fletcher Brownbuilt Pottery Award

1980 Merit Award, Fletcher Brownbuilt Pottery Award

1979 Merit Award, Fletcher Brownbuilt Pottery Award

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Chapman Tripp

Sun Alliance

Montana Wines

Auckland Institute and Museum

Dowse Art Museum

Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa

Manawatu Art Gallery

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, Australia

N Z Embassy, Tokyo, Japan

Northern Arizona University, USA

Pennsylvania State University, USA

Waikato Art Museum

Whangarei Art Gallery

NZ Embassy, Jakarta, Indonesia

James Wallace Arts Trust

SELECTED ARTICLES

2002 John Parker Ceramics, Wellington: David Bateman

2002 Severe White Things, Art News, Summer 2002, pp 50 – 51

1998 Schamroth, Helen, 100 New Zealand Craft Artists, Auckland: Godwit

1996 Lloyd-Jenkins, Douglas, From Paris to Vortex: Keith Murray and New Zealand Ceramics, Keith Murray in Context, Robin Craw (ed.), Napier: Hawkes Bay Museum

1995 Parker, John, The Organic Nature of Sophistication: Lucie Rie Remembered, New Zealand Potter, vol.37, no.3, December 1995, pp 16-18

1995 Mansfield, Janet, Contemporary Ceramic Art in Australia and New Zealand, Sydney: Craftsman House

1990 Waitakere Arts and Cultural Centre. Stages: John Parker Survey Exhibition, Auckland

1988 Parker, John and Celia Parkinson 24 New Zealand Potters, Auckland: David Bateman

1981 Parker, John, Domestic Wares, New Zealand Potter, vol.23, no.2, Spring 1981, pp 24-25

1978 Parker, John, Eat Your Heart Out Betty Crocker, New Zealand Potter, vol.20, no.2, Spring 1978, pp 20

1973 Harris, Margaret, John Parker, New Zealand Potter, vol.15, no.1, Autumn 1973, pp 44-46

1973 Harris, Margaret, John Parker at New Vision, New Zealand Potter, vol.15, no.1. Autumn 1973, pp 47

Selectionofredvessels(2011)