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Parnell’s latest show is a dynamic continuation of his decadelong interest in the relationships between how people think of the world, how the world shows itself, and how people fit into it.
- Rachel Shimp, “Rascally artist’s Weasels! Invade gallery,” Seattle Times, Sept. 12 2008, p. 42.
Parnell has the kind of imagination one might associate with a writer of graphic novels, and an insatiable curiosity about things most people never think about, such as why museum dioramas look so strange and what he calls the “mental geographies of childhood and the politics of Natural History and its presentation.”
- Alec Clayton, “Navigating Mental Geographies and Natural History: Eugene Parnell at Zeitgeist,” (exhibition review), Art Access, Seattle, WA, Dec 2006/Jan 2007, pp. 6-7.
The work poses questions about the value of the animals as individual beings, as representatives of biodiversity, as agricultural or trade products, as avatars of an idealized natural world. “It’s also part of my love affair with the least-beloved flotsam and jetsam of mid-20th century life: the contents of kitchens and basement rec rooms” (Aha! the artist’s true motivation revealed!)
-Sue Peters, Visual Arts Highlight, Seattle Weekly, Dec. 13-19, 2006, p. 33.
Eugene Parnell times and paces production in his Puyallup Avenue space to take advantage of the privacy… He finds that he’s tidier here than in previous studios, which is not to say that random objects don’t pile up…
-Virginia Bunker, “Inside,” (photo essay), City Arts, Tacoma WA, November/December 2006, p. 24.
Parnell, primarily known as a sculptor, goes in a different direction with this installation of 81 drawings hanging from clusters of reedlike sticks that sprout from the floor, walls and ceilings… The drawings are not graphically exciting, but they are humorous and thought provoking.
-Alec Clayton, “Two Things in Ice,” (exhibition review), Weekly Volcano, Tacoma WA, Issue #262, Nov. 2, 2006, p. 2.
Parnell’s work meets all of those criteria. Anthropomorphized animals loom large in his work – animals that tend to act a lot like out-of-control childredn. In some of them it is is impossible to tell which objects the artist has made and which he has appropriated; while in others an almost crude, handmade look masks fine underlying craftsmanship.
-Alec Clayton, “Ice Box Baby,” (exhibition review), Weekly Volcano, Tacoma, WA, issue #218, Dec. 29- Jan. 4, 2005, pp. 2-3.
The presentation of the work in electric format questions the authenticity of the book and the text itself… Is the authenticity in the aesthetics of the object, or in its provenance, and if its provenance is later found to be false, does the piece lose its visual appeal because its authenticity is compromised?
-From “Lost Naturalists of the Pacific,” (gallery retrospective), SOIL Artist-Run Gallery, 1995-2005. Fionn Mead, editor. (SOIL Publications, 2005), pp. 80-81.
“When I was in graduate school I was studying Pacific island art history, and we’d see pictures of these objects with pedigrees, collected by James Cook. The value of the object increased a lot once Cook touched it. So I started thinking, where’s the art in that? They were trophies of colonialism, fetish objects. The people who made them were exterminated, or missionized, and told their objects were evil.”
-Emily Hall, “Bio:Art” (Visual Arts Highlight), The Stranger, Nov 15-22, 2000, p. 53.
This artist has little interest in whether history is genuine; what intrigues him is the politics of tis representation… The exhibition also touches on what Dr. Paul Gilroy calls “the cutting edge issues in contemporary anthropology: the blurring of genres, an interest in experimental presentation, and a self-consciously critical sense of purpose.”
-Cynthia Rose, “Constructed Culture,” (exhibition review), The Seattle Times, Monday Sept 27, 1999, pp. E1-E3.
With the authentic-looking text, imagery and vivid color plates the artist successfully quenches the thirst for digitally-presented knowledge that has developed in congruence with the evolution of the information superhighway.
- Jill Connor, “Lost Naturalists of the Pacific,” (CD-ROM review), Afterimage, Vol. 27, No 4, Jan/Feb 2000, p. 20.