When I first saw Georgiana Houghton’s spirit drawings, I felt an instant, almost bodily recognition: Oh, she was listening to the same hum. Houghton, a Victorian gentlewoman (1814-1884), claimed that spirit guides—Titian, Correggio, and dead relatives, moved her hand. The result was a web of translucent strands, loops, and knots so intricate that even now they look as if they’ve been plotted by software. No horizon, no figure: just thread-like energy fields curling across the page.

When viewers walk into my new exhibition, FREQUENCY, I want them to feel as if they’ve stepped inside light itself—where color doesn’t sit politely on a surface but vibrates through the body like sound through a tuning fork. These paintings grew out of two earlier bodies of work, Unified Field and Lightness of Being, yet they push even further into that liminal territory where surface, light, and matter dissolve into one radiant continuum.

When I start a canvas I’m not really mixing paint; I’m tuning a field of tiny radio stations that happen to live in the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Red light hums along at roughly 620–750 nanometers—about 400 terahertz in frequency—while violet screams past at closer to 380 nanometers, almost 790 terahertz . Knowing that lets me steer feeling with a bit more intention.

In dawn of the 20th century in France was marked by a vibrant and transformative artistic landscape, with the Impressionist movement having laid a fertile ground for the emergence of diverse modern art expressions.1 At the heart of this era stood Claude Monet, a foundational figure of Impressionism, celebrated for his profound ability to capture the subtle nuances of light and his dedication to exploring singular subjects through extensive series of paintings. Among his most iconic works are those depicting water lilies, a subject with which his name became intrinsically linked in the public consciousness.

In dawn of the 20th century in France was marked by a vibrant and transformative artistic landscape, with the Impressionist movement having laid a fertile ground for the emergence of diverse modern art expressions.1 At the heart of this era stood Claude Monet, a foundational figure of Impressionism, celebrated for his profound ability to capture the subtle nuances of light and his dedication to exploring singular subjects through extensive series of paintings. Among his most iconic works are those depicting water lilies, a subject with which his name became intrinsically linked in the public consciousness.

The mid-20th century witnessed a seismic shift in the landscape of American art, with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism marking a departure from European traditions and establishing New York as a new global art center. At the heart of this transformative period were two towering figures: Clement Greenberg, a highly influential art critic whose formalist aesthetic shaped the discourse around modern art, and Jackson Pollock, an artistic innovator who revolutionized painting with his energetic "drip" technique

A significant and often overlooked influence on Van Gogh was the vibrant world of Japanese art, specifically ukiyo-e woodblock prints. These prints, depicting everything from serene landscapes to dramatic kabuki actors, captivated Van Gogh and fundamentally altered his artistic trajectory.

Pierre Bonnard, a luminary of the late 19th and early 20th century art world, was deeply captivated by the aesthetics of Japonism, the Western fascination with Japanese art and culture. While many of his contemporaries explored the bold, graphic aspects of Japanese prints, Bonnard absorbed a more nuanced, intimate understanding of the style, weaving it seamlessly into his own unique artistic vision. His paintings and prints reveal a delicate dance with Japanese aesthetics, marked by specific and recurring elements.

The late 19th century witnessed a cultural phenomenon that swept across the Western art world, leaving an indelible mark on its aesthetic: Japonism. The opening of Japan to trade after centuries of isolation sparked a fervent fascination with Japanese art and design, influencing everything from painting and printmaking to decorative arts. One particularly charming and intimate expression of this influence was the practice of painting on fans, a delicate art form embraced by some of the most prominent artists of the era.

Leslie Parke Sketchbooks from 1979 - 1986

I grew up with this Lalique vase in the entryway to our home. It was one of several pieces that my Grandmother bought in Paris in June of 1929. I know this because my father told me. The time of the purchase seemed significant as it was only a few months before THE CRASH. Later I discovered a receipt, which seems to be about the delivery of several other Lalique items — an ashtray, a box, and a perfume bottle — to her room at Hotel Crillon.

Not everyone would expect that the first paintings I did after my experience at Giverny would be a series of boxing paintings, but it was. 

When I returned to the States I called Teddy Atlas and asked if I could watch him train his new fighters (this was after his break from Cus d’Amato as Mike Tyson’s trainer.) One of his fighters had a fight coming up in Atlantic City and he thought I should photograph that. . .

Golf Juan I is a photograph of a glassed-in advertising kiosk I saw in France. It immediately struck me as a trompe l’oeil painting, with bits of tape and torn pieces of paper and the residue of glue stuck to the surface of the glass. Behind the glass is an old tourist poster faded with age. Reflected off of the glass is the village behind me, while the trees on the left are impossible to locate in space; are they part of the old poster, or a reflected part of the village? The photograph tests all our powers of perception.

The nature/nurture question has been applied to artists at least as often as it has to athletes. And the verdict is still out. While I am distantly related to Stefan Lochner, a Northern European Gothic painter, his genes did not make an appearance in any of the intervening generations.  As for nurture, there are some things in my background that, while not predictive, at least didn’t halt my development as an artist.

In 1981 I worked on a documentary with Michael Marton on the not-yet Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, Henry Brant. Marton’s approach to documentary filmmaking was to embed us with his subjects for a long period. This documentary coincided with when I was working on the drawings featured here, which ultimately led to a collaboration between Henry and me on a piece he did for the Holland Festival called Inside Track.

Here is a story I wrote at the time about just how embedded things could get.

I aspire to being anal compulsive, but I have to hire-out. I create chaos when I work. Things are moved and abandoned on the floor.  Since I dip my hands into the paint as I work, I'll pull multiple gloves off and leave them on my paint table. But I like to have everything in order when I start. Paints lined up by color. Brushes by size and type. A place for everything and everything in its place. It's largely because once I am completely engaged in painting, the last thing I want to do is stop and look for a tool or find out I don't have the paint that I need.

My surgery took six hours. The narcotics kept me comfortable, and the hallucinations were entertaining. At one point I imagined the pillows under my arms were jewel-encrusted, and that they were also paintings that I was working on. And they were coming out so well. (Yes, that was the drugs talking.)