Caitlin Parker is a textile artist, natural dyer, gardener and naturalist. Since receiving her BA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London and her MFA in painting from Bard College, Parker has exhibited her work in galleries and museums across the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. She has had solo shows at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY; Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York; and Rhodes and Mann Gallery, London. She’s also been in many group shows including exhibitions at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Field Projects Gallery, LABspace, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum. She was the recipient of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, which took her to conduct research and photograph Ukraine’s Chernobyl site. She has been an artist in residence at the studios at MASS MoCA and Drop Forge & Tool in Hudson, NY. She has taught workshops at the New York Botanical Garden, Wave Hill and Naumkeag. She grew up in Northern California and currently lives and works in LA.

I’m drawn to places that emphasize the tension between the natural world and human intervention. My local environment of Southern California inspires much of my subject matter. I’ve explored toxic superfund sites such as George Air Force Base, ongoing ecological disasters like the Salton Sea, and the iconic LA River, which alone could serve as a history lesson in the failures of human engineering. These narratives in which mankind and nature unsuccessfully intersect reflect deeper psychological anxieties: the prioritizing of humans above all else, our need for predictability and ownership, and fear in the face of nature’s indifference. I present these places mid transformation, exploring the line between apocalyptic and optimistic. Even with my anxiety about the destruction of our planet, I find hope where the natural world is recovering and sometimes thriving despite our disastrous interventions. My subject matter has led me to create a sustainable and circular art practice. Almost everything in my studio is found, grown, gifted or foraged. I make the dyes from plants in my garden, from various food scraps, or from materials I forage on hikes through the Santa Monica Mountains. I compost any waste and use it to feed new seedlings. I’ve learned where to find the best oak galls and when to collect them, which varieties of local plants produce the best colors and how that shifts depending on the season. Working this way connects me with my immediate environment and its cycles. I think of my textile works as paintings. But they’re constructed entirely out of fabric and put together through various sewing techniques: machine quilting, hand sewing, machine and hand appliqué, hand quilting. In some I add embroidery. All incorporate textiles I’ve modified with natural dye, cyanotype, hand printing, and bundle dyeing. All of my work, whether I’m making a still life, an abstract composition, or a landscape, is a meditation on the natural world. And a celebration of its resilience.

Exhibition:

Dream Machine