MIKE PARR

Mike Parr has interrogated political and psychological extremes through his practice for over 50 years. Beneath the shock value often associated with his performances, printmaking, drawings, or sculptures lies a deeper interrogation of self-portraiture—one that questions the boundaries of authentic personal and political expression.

“I’m interested in portraiture, what it conceals & what others don’t see. All my work is a form of portraiture. The performance works in particular are portraits of my attempt to imagine myself into the circumstances of others.

All portraiture in the traditional sense of the painted or drawn likeness is arbitrary. They’re stopped moments in time. What we see is invariably contradicted by what we don’t see, that is why Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro produces such an overwhelming impression of presence. Given our hauntingly ideological times I think the audience should take responsibility for what they see. Blindness [not seeing] is integral to portraiture. That is why HUMAN ANIMALS needs to be seen as a series. As a series the survival of the fittest exists only momentarily. We’re all human animals.”

(Mike Parr, 2025)