Post punk pop or what?

DESCRIBING his method as “creating fashion landscapes”, artist Geoff Parr says his inspirations are fashion designers such as John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood, as well as artists such as Ed Kienholz, Nancy Reddin, Francis Bacon, Sigmar Polke and Thomas Demand.

But while Parr's highly unusual pieces give the impression of a fabric base, close inspection reveals they are constructed from a wide and sometimes seemingly incompatible range of materials: stuffing, hand stitching and canvas painted using household paints, oils and acrylics.

The painted canvas itself asks the viewer whether this is fine art or pop art, and indeed painting or sculpture.

His work is created through a series of destructive acts, e.g. cutting, pouring and stitching paintings. Time Out in Manchester has called his work 'Post-Punk Pop'.

The title of this exhibition, Soft Folds, Hard Edges, arises from the contrast between the initial image projected by the work, and the actuality of its construction. Parr describes himself as “part sculptor, part painter, part fashion-designer.”

He graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in 2000 and has worked as an artist since. Group shows and a solo show in Serbia were followed by a collaboration with fashion designer Aida in the Expo XXI in Belgrade, Serbia.

Parr has been working on this collection of paintings for the last three years, and wanted to exhibit them in his home town of Liverpool, showing the development of his ideas over a period of time.

His three favourite pieces right now, he says, are: Morecambe Bay, Some Hope, Some Glory and his latest , Give ‘Em Enough Rope. He sees his work as the observations of the everyday:

“For instance,” he says: “Morecambe Bay arose from a conversation I had with an elderly lady on a coach, about the resort's heyday.

"I then thought about Morecambe as a bay and how it would have appeared at different times of the day. I also thought about the architecture as well as clothing which would have been worn around this time."

*Soft Folds – Hard Edges, until August 22nd 2010, from Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm Saturday 10am - 6pm and Sunday 11am to 4pm Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, 41-51 Greenland Street, Liverpool, L1 0BS, 0151 706 6900. contemporaryurbancentre

Gayna Rose Madder