IN Kansas City Article Feature
Portrait Artist Ben Parks Answers Four Questions
How Ben Parks came into the world is a classic Midwestern larger-than-life story. On the way to the hospital from Fairfax, Missouri, “Tornadoes were touching down,” he relates, “but my dad kept driving. The electricity was out, so the hospital was running on generators.”
Today, this Kansas City-based artist primarily focuses on painting larger-than-life portraits and figurative work imbued with their own drama. “My work is an exercise in capturing the essence of a soul,” he says. “I paint subject matter in a state of being unmasked emotionally. I look for unguarded moments where the true nature of a person is visible.”
“Emotional in nature, I paint these real moments on large-scale canvases,” he adds. “As I am painting, I transfer my own emotional experience into the process while also being affected by my perception of the subject. My goal through painting is to bring the subconscious into awareness.”
Parks is also involved in illustrations, interactive installations, music, printmaking, and sculpture. As a visual artist, he has shown many original works in galleries and museums throughout the country, including the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Leedy-Voulkous Art Center, the Foundry Art Centre, the Lawrence Arts Center, the Cee Flat Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the KCAC, and the Hilliard Gallery. Parks’s work has been acquired for private collections and museums throughout the country.
Some artists are drawn to landscape or abstract, but you are most fervently on the portrait side of things. Portraits used to say “Look how important I am.” But what do they say to you? What intrigues you about the human face?
I can’t really explain it—I’ve just always been drawn to the human face and gaze since elementary school. For me, it’s about capturing a moment or a feeling—someone’s sense of consciousness or perspective.
Tell us a little bit about your process. Canvas? Paint? Grid marks? Secret messages?
I work on canvas, usually pinning it directly to the wall before applying gesso to smooth out any wrinkles. Each piece begins with a one-inch grid system, drawn in pencil using a seven-foot-long, one-by-two-inch board. This helps me maintain proper proportions and creates a sense of intimacy with the painting.
From there, I define the planes of light and shadow, starting with a blue underpainting. I then draw and glaze multiple layers of paint on top.
In a series of portraits of my siblings and parents, I embedded hidden messages: each one-inch square of the grid contains a single letter, forming a written letter to each individual. I also underpainted the eyes—using my own blood—since red is the complementary color to the green and blue tones of our eyes.
That’s why the series is titled “Blood is Like Family.” It explores the pain of being shunned after leaving the religion I was raised in, and the deep suffering that has come from that rupture.
You grew up in a very religious family in which you were not encouraged to “color outside the lines,” so to speak. And yet you paint these hyper realistic portraits that go deep—yet still stay within lines. Does creativity always find a way?
I don’t think it does, unfortunately. I think artists who keep going have a screw loose, and that is more the impetus than creativity having an intrinsic need to exist. I would much prefer if the latter were the case, though—it’s a very romantic notion.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently working on a self-portrait series exploring themes of self-loathing and God, a series of portraits of teachers and inspirational mentors, and a collection of figurative and narrative figure/room scenes. I’m also exploring interactive installation work that combines projection and sculpture.