I like this as the title of an exhibition of work by a friend of mine, Bill Parker. It refers to the fact that the body of material produced here was done during the “lockdown”, when he was compelled to feel almost that he was in hiding, like a hunted fox. It also refers to his turning to landscape themes, which have not normally occupied him in the time I have known him. He is a regular walker on the moorland around Haworth, where he lives. The pieces in this show are dramatic semi-abstract studies, intensely coloured, often structured into a series of vertical bands which suggest the changing moods of landscape as one passes through it.
My time was very limited today, and I will have to go back again in the coming week for a proper look, as I began to realise that the work began to grow on me as I spent time with it. Also, Bill turned up in the middle of my viewing, and we fell to talking …. or should I say, he did! Actually, unlike a lot of artists what he has to say about his own work is actually worth hearing. I would not have suspected otherwise just how his journey as a painter runs alongside his responses to music, of which he seems to have a compendious knowledge.
I haven’t seen Bill in a long time, and it was great to meet him again. The experience did underline the extent to which we have all been compelled to “go to earth” during the past year.
If you are in range, the exhibition is on at the Creative Spaces gallery, on Hanover St. in Keighley. It’s open Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays until 7 August, between 11 and 3.