Parker Day is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores identity and the masks we wear. Her focus is on fictionalized portraiture shot exclusively in studio on 35mm film. She completed ICONS, a series of 100 character portraits, which was presented in a solo show at Superchief Gallery LA in February 2017, coinciding with the release of her first monograph.
When Bay Area photographer Parker Day moved in Los Angeles in 2015, she used social media to curate a community, using Instagram as her guide to an eclectic cast of local freaks. For ICONS, Day reached deep into her closet — er, costume room — for cheeky treasures and “weirdo stuff” collected during a years-long thrifting jag. Furbies and fishnet face masks exist alongside clip-on nails and bags of Wonder Bread... Deliberately un-Photoshopped, all of the irreverent perversity is served up to the viewer unvarnished. Setting your eyes on Parker Day’s work is a trip reminiscing of artists such as the French duo Pierre et Gilles or John Water. This child of the ’80s has pulled from her founding years’ techniques and a sense of oddity which was in dire need of revival.
“There’s real energy that’s communicated in how we look, in our gestures, in all of these little choices [...] I feel like I’ve lived many different lives… You can take control over how others see you and [that sets] you off into a new reality,” she explains. Follow Parker Day on Instagram.
[source: unrtd]
