Sean Bw Parker

Can you tell us about your earliest artistic influences and what drew you to the world of fine art?

Most of my earliest influences were from the world of alternative music, their presentation and album sleeve artwork – Gary Numan, David Bowie, Kate Bush, The Cure, Prince, numerous others. Much of their work was seen as alternative at times in the 80’s anyway! I was aware of fine art on the periphery for as long as I can remember, and wouldn’t differentiate between a Hogarth, a Picasso or a Warhol. I knew it was all somehow connected in spirit to the music I loved, and knew I wanted to explore that as far as I could.

How did your time in Istanbul shape your artistic style and creative process?

I was mainly working in music as musician and writer when I lived in Istanbul, but the main shaping was in focussing more intently on the project, and managing groups of people into studios, to gigs, photo shoots etc. I knew as many expat Americans, Antipodeans and North Europeans as Turks, being a part of that community. Being there at the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, there was a good deal of anti-war feeling about, regarding in Turkey and abroad, and at times it all got quite wild. I was in a noise bomb at a suburban cafe, and a dog pack attack late at night walking back from the nightlife district, so it got quite hairy. It all feeds into the work in the end.

Your work involves a mix of acrylic, ink, and watercolor. What drives your choice of medium for each piece?

I have a compulsion to make whatever I’m about to work on either slightly or very different from the last thing I did, particularly in painting. Acrylic is way stronger, and watercolour far more unpredictable, in a good way. So if I want to go somewhere lighter and more free feeling, I’ll go to watercolour if the last thing had been some straight-edge, pop art style acrylic piece. There are no rules though, and increasingly both mediums, plus oil pastel and good old ink, are involved. My constant challenge is in when to stop, when to consider a piece ‘finished’. It’s a conversation that continues!

Faces and bodies appear frequently in your paintings. What significance do these elements hold for you?

I enjoy and aspire to free abstraction, but my hand tends to want to root back to recognisability in one way or another, and I often try to either rein that impulse in, or integrate it into the whole. It’s all about seeing where the last mark leads, then not being afraid of going to the next place, and nothing being that precious. Don’t throw anything away, avoid painting over canvasses, and build the collection that way. People are fascinated by faces, that universal communicator, and all my favourite artists have manipulated that in some way. I guess I might have unconsciously embedded that.

What was it like to give a TEDx talk on ‘Stammering and Creativity’? How has this experience influenced your work?

Being a person who stammers myself, in the past much more problematically than now, it was very nerve-wracking. I was asked because I was known in writing circles, and was honoured to be asked, as TED talks are such a big deal. I worked out that stammering and creativity were two subjects I knew something about, so combined them as something I could be reasonably confident in longevity. My work in music and writing is probably much more connected to the stammer, as I express myself there in ways I couldn’t in speech, for years. Ten years teaching helped that, then promotion for my 2023 book Compelling Speech – The Stammering Enigma, which is very much an autobiographical companion piece to the talk. Most of the good creative stuff comes from the right brain though, with the orderly left brain trying to discipline it – so all my interests are maybe covered within that!

You’ve worked as a writer, musician, and artist. How do these different forms of creativity influence each other in your work?

There has never been any pressure to specialise in one, except at art school, where the lecturers wanted to regulate it all in an odd way. I couldn’t choose between video art, abstract painting and cultural theory back then (1997-2003), so hopped between the three.  When I moved to Istanbul after my masters I tried to conjoin all that ‘finishing’ training into the music, and could never stop writing about the world around me, whether about music, art or politics. Now I accept that I love all three mediums/disciplines equally, thus try to give each project equal intensity, and throw it all at the wall. What sticks, sticks.

What advice would you give to aspiring artists who are just starting out?

Don’t self-edit, leave that to others or do it only when you must. Don’t be afraid to paint anything that comes to you, and don’t be too precious about it, just get it out. Put it away or get away from it when natural breaks occur, and come back to whatever it is with fresh eyes.  Often sleep will provide solutions from the unconscious, and the creat ive mind solves things in its own mysterious way. My one criteria for art criticism nowadays is: could it have been done with AI? If it couldn’t, then you’re on the right track.

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