Parker Wittenberg was born in California, but grew up in New York, where she drew and painted from childhood into her teens.
She received her B.S. from University of Arizona and completed post-graduate work at Harvard’s Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
While working in the medical/health field, she returned to studying drawing and painting in the 1990s. This included studying with various UCLA instructors, and with Graham Nickson, painter and Dean of The New York Studio School of Drawing Painting and Sculpture. She currently lives and paints in Los Angeles.
One of the attractions she finds in painting is that it is non-verbal communication. The hope is to impart to the viewer her interpretation of images she has experienced; certain images that draw one in emotionally, sometimes due to their sense of timelessness, oftentimes for reasons unknown to her.
She received her B.S. from University of Arizona and completed post-graduate work at Harvard’s Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
While working in the medical/health field, she returned to studying drawing and painting in the 1990s. This included studying with various UCLA instructors, and with Graham Nickson, painter and Dean of The New York Studio School of Drawing Painting and Sculpture. She currently lives and paints in Los Angeles.
One of the attractions she finds in painting is that it is non-verbal communication. The hope is to impart to the viewer her interpretation of images she has experienced; certain images that draw one in emotionally, sometimes due to their sense of timelessness, oftentimes for reasons unknown to her.
Wittenberg’s focus is primarily on Landscapes and Figures, be they landscapes composed in studio or in plein aire, or live models in studio or in pleine aire. She is drawn to exploring relationships with color, working primarily in oils. She utilizes various techniques and supports; may use methods of glazing and/or alla prima on different textured canvas, linen, jute and board.
Pleine Aire landscapes are painted as sentient experiences for the artist as time and place and for the viewer as well. Painting “live” outdoors in the landscape, she occasionally works on one-day paintings, but prefers spending many days in the same location, building a different sort of long-form “snapshot” that may evoke memories and feelings in the viewer. Although Wittenberg has painted in locations outside of California, she paints mainly in Southern California. As a resident of Los Angeles, she finds there is a gift of exploring the life, people and neighborhoods that this city offers in its diversity.
Pleine Aire landscapes are painted as sentient experiences for the artist as time and place and for the viewer as well. Painting “live” outdoors in the landscape, she occasionally works on one-day paintings, but prefers spending many days in the same location, building a different sort of long-form “snapshot” that may evoke memories and feelings in the viewer. Although Wittenberg has painted in locations outside of California, she paints mainly in Southern California. As a resident of Los Angeles, she finds there is a gift of exploring the life, people and neighborhoods that this city offers in its diversity.
At times certain forms influence her work and compositions. As a member of the Art Guild of Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California for a number of years, she worked on “rock” paintings, exploring the form and energy of rocks in the Japanese and Chinese Gardens of Huntington Gardens. Her interest is in both the form and how they are part of the overall experience in these gardens.
Painting in Studio often emanates from remembered moments, sometimes studied moments, from images etched in her mind containing such factors as various light conditions, surface conditions, and special arrangements of shapes. In composing, it is the sense of the image and the memory of the image that propels her forward in her interpretation. The painting that finally emerges may be wonderfully unexpected. Exploring color relationships, and a variety of palettes she finds exciting; keeping color ideas especially ‘open” throughout the painting process so as to “listen” in the quiet to what ideas may come to her, and then sift through various options as she works in the space.
When painting Figures, Wittenberg too, is attracted to Figures in the landscape….exploring their relationship to their surrounding environment, be it interior space or in the outdoor setting. Emphasis is on interpretation; finding the rhythms of Expressionism at times.
Painting in Studio often emanates from remembered moments, sometimes studied moments, from images etched in her mind containing such factors as various light conditions, surface conditions, and special arrangements of shapes. In composing, it is the sense of the image and the memory of the image that propels her forward in her interpretation. The painting that finally emerges may be wonderfully unexpected. Exploring color relationships, and a variety of palettes she finds exciting; keeping color ideas especially ‘open” throughout the painting process so as to “listen” in the quiet to what ideas may come to her, and then sift through various options as she works in the space.
When painting Figures, Wittenberg too, is attracted to Figures in the landscape….exploring their relationship to their surrounding environment, be it interior space or in the outdoor setting. Emphasis is on interpretation; finding the rhythms of Expressionism at times.