Jacqueline Dee Parker

April 2024

A Geometry of Hours

Isabella Valise/Devin Borden is pleased to host an exhibition of new works by Louisiana-based Jacqueline Dee Parker. Her third solo project with Devin Borden, this two-part exhibition features works on canvas and panel, opening April 6 (Saturday) from 2:00.m to 4:00 p.m. The public is invited to view the works, enjoy refreshments, and meet the artist. Please join us.

Jacqueline Dee Parker is an artist and a poet who was born in New York City and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in creative writing / painting and drawing from Louisiana State University. Parker served as an instructor at Louisiana State University for nearly 30 years, teaching in the Department of English before joining the faculty of the School of Art. Prior to life in the Deep South, she lived and worked as a freelance graphic layout artist in New York City, Boston, and Detroit. An artist member of the Baton Rouge Gallery Center for Contemporary Art, her work is represented by Ann Connelly (Baton Rouge), Picture Room (Brooklyn) and Isabella Valise/Devin Borden (Houston). The recipient of a Fellowship from the Louisiana State Division of the Arts, she was recently awarded an Artist Career Grant from South Arts. A practicing writer and visual artist, her poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, including Atlanta Review, Chelsea, Cortland Review, Eratio Poetry Journal, The Southern Review, Spinning Jenny, and American Diaspora: Poetry of Exile, among others. Her paintings and works on paper have been exhibited throughout the US and have been collected internationally. She lives in Baton Rouge with her husband, cellist Dennis Parker.

An Ars Poetica

A Geometry of Hours is an exhibition in two parts. The entry space includes works incorporating collage with antique textiles under the heading An Ars Poetica (on view through April 30).

Parker’s conception of the series is bound to her literary life. She writes,

“Over two millenia ago the Roman poet Horace wrote a 476 line poem, a treatise on the art of poetry, titled Ars Poetica. Since then, countless other poets have reflected on the art of poetry and the call to write, composing their own Ars Poetica, poems that dispatch ideas about discipline, process, craft, the value of art, and the power of language. I’ve chosen to borrow this literary term for an ongoing series of small ‘visual poems,’ intimate daily devotions that embody the essential rituals, materials and concerns that govern my own creative practice.”

Open House in the Memory Palace

The two-part exhibition progresses further with a second installment showcased in the IV/DB rear gallery. Continuing until June 30, Open House in the Memory Palace unites new and recent paintings, embodying Parker’s established technique of collage on canvas and wood panel. Central to this body of work is the series of vertical pieces titled “A Fort in the Cosmos,” which anchors an assortment of rectangular and round artworks with an intricate essence. Parker draws inspiration from various sources, potentially resembling structures, still life compositions, or urban landscapes. Intertwining brisk and staccato imagery with coded personal meanings, the paintings incorporate visual allusions to family professions: writing, art, architecture and music.

About these paintings Parker writes,

“Building a memory palace is a way of recalling what one wishes not to forget. In the context of my work, it serves as a metaphor for interrogation of remembered spaces. As Gaston Bachelard explains in The Poetics Of Space, an inhabited space transcends its geometrical constraints, becoming a container in which past, present and future may collectively reside. Such an inclusive and emotional sense of space has long informed my practice. Source materials include antique and vintage papers from music, literature and other ephemera. These chosen fragments of lived experience reference a personal lineage as well as my esteem for the analog culture that is rapidly dematerializing from all human life.”

All works shown are available for purchase at Isabella Valise / Devin Borden. Additionally, the gallery is currently accepting consignments of fine and decorative arts. Whether you prefer to visit us in person or receive more information through email or text, we are here to assist you. Feel free to reach out at 713-256-0225.