Artist Feature // 5 Questions for Gina Parr

Gina Parr is a UK-based artist who works predominantly in the medium of painting. Originally receiving her first degree in fine art, she went on to Chelsea College of Art to study set design, leading to a 25-year career in production design, creating a multitude of sets and stages for David Bowie, Kylie, Robbie Williams, various BBC dramas, and more. She returned to work as an artist 13 years ago, bringing her design sensibilities to her art practice.

Gina’s work is about expressing who she is, where she has come from, and the notion that we are formed by our personal journeys, our experiences and our relationships. Her work is beautifully gestural and has so much movement, especially her latest body of work Public, Private, Secret. Her technique involves using palette knife, cloth, brush, sponge and her fingers, to scratch, blur and work the paint, recently drawing into the paint with charcoal, all aiming to invoke an atmosphere drawn from the process.

In addition to Gina’s paintings, you should check out the beautifully textured photos that she takes while traveling, too!

Learn more and read my Q&A with Gina, below.

5 Questions for Gina Parr

1) What is your favorite kind of work to do at the moment?

I’ve been involved in producing a new body of work since last October, “Public, Private, Secret” which explores desire, love and sensuality, through both dark and saturated colour and intense mark making with charcoal, played out in the negative space that has obsessed me in my work since 2013. I’ve also always been interested in the freedom of gut to hand expression, and at the moment I’m keen to explore the dichotomy between dynamic visceral gestural mark-making and quieter more detailed concentrated drawing.

I started the series “Public, Private, Secret” prior to COVID-19 appearing and whilst continuing on with this body of work this year, I’ve found my practice, not surprisingly, affected by the strange and difficult time we’re all living through.

2) What kinds of things inspire you?

My work has both nature and self at its heart, it’s about expressing who I am, where I’ve come from, and the notion that we are formed by our personal journeys, our experiences and our relationships.

My everyday themes: family, childhood, loss, love, environment and gender are played out in a chimerical space that lies somewhere between abstraction and figuration.