I started the RESIST Portrait Series, a selection pictured here, as a more productive reaction to my habit of constantly questioning what we value and what actually matters to us. With figuration as the foundation, each piece is a marker for the effort in striving to rip apart false facades or share how the world could be if we open our hearts and minds to possibility. Through texture, selective development, and abstraction, the mixed media executions utilize a variety of painting techniques to explore temporal dimensions where traces of the past, present, and future exist simultaneously in each composition. The intention is to create work that facilitates space for thoughtful moments, to challenge, or even give pause for beauty and fellowship in dark times.
Kenneth E. Parris III is a Brooklyn based Visual Artist and Creative Director. He has exhibited across the United States and in numerous art fairs and his paintings and installations have been critically acclaimed, notably by: WalkerArt.org, NPR, Trend Hunter Art & Design, Fine Art Connoisseur, and Time Out New York. His original series of drawings and text titled “Drawing Dance” was featured for twenty-three weeks in The New York Times ArtsBeat and culminated in exhibitions in New York City, Houston, Philadelphia, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and Vail Dance Festival for the Merce Cunningham Centennial Celebration.
Kenneth is a studio artist in Chashama’s Space To Create Program and is fiscally sponsored by The Solo Foundation. He has won awards from the American Advertising Federation and had work twice selected for the Bombay Sapphire & Russell Simmons Artisan Series. He is the visual designer for a multi-disciplinary performance titled SET A|PART and performed in the remount of Rashaun Mitchell’s NOX at Danspace Project. Kenneth has been a panelist for The One Club and guest lectured on collaboration at Bard College. He is a Creative Director in Advertising, an Instructor at Miami Ad School in New York City, and Art Editor of H.O.W. Journal.
Kenneth received a BFA in Illustration and an AAS in Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY. He has artwork in numerous collections including Barclay & Rebecca Knapp, Lester Marks, and Dr. Richard J. Massey.
