Aimée Parrott distills her ideas, motifs and imagery through a range of media and styles but the monoprint remains at the heart of her practice. It yields spontaneity and gives her works a subtle sense of seriality. For her paintings, the transferral of an image on the plate onto an unprimed cotton canvas surface also allows her to work with the slippages produced by this method.
The trace of a motif is offered forward by its ghost print onto another cotton surface, becoming a suggestion for a new idea. Images are echoed through Parrott’s work in this way, creating a sense of movement, alluding to growth. There is an atmosphere of interconnectivity where unnameable microbial forms or planetary motifs are perceivable in other works. This adds to the overall impression of a relationship between the micro and the macro, and of space and time on a larger spectrum.
She works into her compositions on cotton – sometimes dyed, embellished or stitched – to the degree where they might become like furrows of skin, at once tangible and intangible. By using appliqué to add further material, a seam or juncture, she positions her work between image and material object. There is sometimes also a sense of multiplicity in the way she alludes to a frame within a frame, or a window within a window.
While her work may read like abstractions her sensitivity to/for representational motifs reveals her interests in the transformations found in ecological or geological structures and other matter. Joyous, colourful figurative gestures resonate between the works. These gestures can then recede, creating fluidity on the threshold of abstraction. These shifts in orientation point to where the nature of her mark making and its context is finely balanced.
Aimée Parrott (born 1987, Brighton) studied at University College Falmouth (2006-2009) and Royal Academy Schools (2011-2014). Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Whitehawk Camp’ at Mackintosh Lane, London (2022), ‘Gaia’s Kidney’ at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth Garden City (2020) and ‘Blood Sea’ at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2018). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including ’The Conference of the Birds’ at Tristan Hoare Gallery, London (2022), ‘Superpower’ at Sim Smith Gallery, London (2022), ‘Secret of Lightness’ at Parafin Gallery, London (2022), ‘Press 24: Charlie Billingham and Aimée Parrott’ at Sid Motion Gallery, London (2021), ‘The Studio at 4am’ at Hastings Contemporary, Hastings (2020), ‘Platform Y at Platform Foundation, Curated by Kate Bryan’ at Platform Foundation, London (2019). She has recently completed a commission at Soho Beach House, Brighton (2022). She curated the exhibition, ‘All That the Rain Promises and More...’, Edinburgh Arts Festival, Edinburgh (2019). She has had residencies with Artists League of New York and Angelika Studios in South East England. She currently lives and works in Brighton.
