Joan Parker

My best work translates the moment, the landscape, and elements into a memory held by the canvas and pigment. The more I allow intuition and spontaneity to override what I think I know, the better the final result. Plein air painting is about truly being there, partnering with land and sky. For me it is about knowing that the subject and the moment are the soul of the work and not subordinating it to me or to my agenda. When I am the lands translator and advocate, thats when my work advances and evolves.

Joan Parker, a California native, is a plein air landscape painter whose keen eye for design initially took her to Paris to study hair and fashion design. She built a successful career and business before turning her attention to painting and fine art. Parker received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. She moved to the Kansas City area in 1996, when Hallmark Cards recruited her to create original greeting card artwork. Six years later, she left Hallmark to pursue plein air painting full-time.

Parker has been instrumental in establishing plein air painting events in both Missouri and Kansas. I often awaken from sleep at sunrise, with the light calling me outside to participate in the birth of the new day, she exclaims. I love the beauty of the reflected colors on a lake as the wind shimmers diagonally across the surface, so I capture it in paint! Parker is in the permanent collection of Libraries and Corporations and is represented in galleries from St. Louis to California.

Parker has a passion for the immediacy of painting outdoors and enjoys sharing her love with others by holding workshops through out the Midwest.