“My paintings explore the abstract qualities of the human figure and its ghostly equivalents. Drawing imagery from many philosophical and religious sources, I animate shadows using materials and rituals that render the figure in substantial and ephemeral terms. In my process, I give equal precedence to accident and control by oxidizing silver with a solution of sulfurated potash fixed with a microcrystalline wax designed by the British Museum.”
Trude Parkinson is a visual artist based in Portland, Oregon, whose primary medium is painting. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Arizona State University and has served on the Art Department faculties of Marylhurst University and Arizona State University. Parkinson has worked as a visiting artist at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and in the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University. Her work has been selected for the Oregon Biennial at the Portland Art Museum, exhibited at The Art Gym, Marylhurst University, and at Parsons The New School for Design in New York. She has had solo exhibitions at The Scottsdale Center for the Arts, the University of Arizona, and Wolfson College, Oxford University, England. More recently Parkinson has been granted a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission, a stipend from the Heitland Foundation for a painting residency in Celle Germany and a Project Grant from Oregon’s Regional Arts and Culture Council. Her work is in many collections, including the Henry Ford Collection and the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her life and work are deeply informed by Buddhism, Jungian psychology, and all forms of literature. She is represented by Augen Gallery in Portland, Oregon.