Kenton Parker
My first Show

From children’s games, to books, to film and television, the world of a child is rich in imagery that both educates and amuses. In this, Kenton’s first solo show (fittingly dedicated to his mother, an educator), he is starting at the beginning: childhood. Expanding the boundaries of traditional Pop Art, Kenton draws his inspiration from motifs, which all children, both young and old, can recognize. In this, his latest body of work, Kenton has created a rich and potent vocabulary of icons and imagery that bridges the gap between the child and the adult in us all.

Kenton was born in Northern California in 1968 and was raised in an environment filled with learning and imagery. With his father an officer in the military, frequent moves throughout the US and Asia came with the territory. During these formative years, Kenton observed that inevitably the one thing that he and the other kids had in common was the iconography and images that had been presented in the media of television, movies, books and games. As Kenton grew older, he realized that for those raised in the latter half of the twentieth century, having been bombarded constantly with information, these images constitute a common theme for us all. The fact, coupled with the inspiration that Kenton draws from his mother, a schoolteacher, led him to these images of childhood.

Included in the exhibition is a wide range of images arranged on small canvases in engaging vignettes. Here Kenton has created a common vocabulary, a level playing field, where both adults and children, big and small, can converse. Be it children encountering these icons for the first time, or adults rediscovering them, Kenton has conceived an arena where dialogue and discovery prevail.

“…It’s a show for kids,
about kids
by the biggest kid I know.”

-Kenton Parker, 1997