Annie Parker came to sculpture later in life.
Of Italian origin, she was born in France but moved to London in her early twenties, where she first worked for the BBC as a production assistant for radio and TV. Later she moved to film editing in the cutting rooms.
After a break to raise young daughters, however, Annie resolved to fulfil a lifelong ambition and pursue a career in art.
She trained at the City & Guilds of London Art School and then Heatherley School of Fine Art, where she acquired diplomas in both portraiture painting and figurative sculpture. Sculpture is her passion, and she has been carving stone ever since, but her years of portrait painting have left an abiding fascination with the human expression. This is reflected in her series of stone heads.
“The human face is an endless source of inspiration. It reflects the whole of humanity, and I have an on-going compulsion to recreate it in my stonework,” she says.
Her stonework is varied, however, and she is currently in the process of creating a series of bird forms. Most of her work is in stone, but many of her sculptures are also cast in plaster, resin or bronze.
Annie’s work has been acquired by collectors in London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Austria, Chicago and Singapore.
October 1999 AAF London
October 2000 AAF London
October 2001 AAF London
September 2002 Autumn Arts Festival, Wormley, Surrey
June 2003 Carlyle Gallery, London
January 2006 Leighton House, London
April 2006 Exhibition Centre, Henley-on-Thames
February 2008 Gallery 27, Cork Street London
April 2008 Plus One Gallery London
June 2008 Samsung advertising campaign
October 2008 Art London
November 2008 Bicha Winter Show, Wyndham Grand, Chelsea Harbour, London
May 2009 AAF Bristol
June 2009 Bicha Gallery launch Gabriel’s wharf London
September 2009 Bicha Gallery Architectural Views
October 2009 Bicha Gallery Fashion identity
October 2009 Newcastle Gateshead Art Fair
October 2009 AAF Autumn Collection London
November 2009 Discerning Eye, Mall Gallery, London
November 2009 Bicha Gallery ‘Looking For A City’
February 2010 AAF Brussels
May 2010 AAF Paris
October 2010 AAF London
November 2010 AAF Singapore
February 2011 AAF Milan
April 2011 Art Chicago
May 2011 AAF New-York
October 2012 AAF London
October 2013 AAF London
October 2014 AAF London
October 2015 AAF London
“The Italian Renaissance masters are a major influence on my work, particularly Michelangelo, who remains a constant reference. I was young when I first visited Florence to admire the paintings and sculptures I had until then only seen in books.
I was overwhelmed by the emotions they provoked. I remember Michaelangelo’s David in the Academia in Florence, particularly: the people looking on in awe and reverence, as if in church. I realised then the power of a work of art, its sheer visual pleasure, its potential for joy, and to evoke something even spiritual.
That is what I aim for in my work: to transform a rock into an emotional expression. I want my sculptures to give visual pleasure, to touch people and communicate my passion. I am driven only by a pure search for the perfect form, the line of beauty, and for sheer harmony. I will go back to a work endlessly to achieve a particular curve.
It is the ceaseless struggle to extract the spirit from the stone.”