Michael Parkes is one of my all-time favorite artists. Literally half of my life I have adored his work, and time hasn’t decreased that enchantment at all (I feel lucky enough to have one of his books). It took me forever to get the pictures together (don’t ask), so I was not feeling all that creative writing up an original intro. Luckily for me, I found this same bio on every Michael Parkes site I visited:

Michael Parkes is America’s leading Magic Realist painter and printmaker. Though he studied graphic art and painting at the University of Kansas, his unique style evolved very much in isolation, after a period in which he gave up the practice of art altogether and went off to India in search of philosophical illumination: born in 1944, he was very much of the hippie generation. Earlier on, he had painted in the generally Abstract Expressionist style normal among his teachers, but after his pause for reflection he began to draw and paint in a meticulous style of detailed representation which would enable him to give full expression to his inner world of images. The style was in principle realistic, the subject matter magical, and Magic Realism has characterized his work ever since.

He has studied deeply in esoteric doctrine of the East and the West, and his imagery is drawn from a range of wisdoms including the Cabalistic and the Tantric, but embodied in forms from his own imagination which are immediately accessible. Here strange beasts encounter mysterious winged women, good and evil fight out their immemorial conflict (though who can be perfectly sure which is which?), and in this weightless environment worlds are unmade and remade nearer to the heart’s desire.

Even as a student Parkes was fascinated by various graphic processes, and in recent years he has become highly proficient in the difficult medium of the color stone lithograph.

Gargoyles

Deva

The Creation

White Sphinx

Dragon Fly

There are many websites where you can view more of his works, and all forms of art to buy. lithographs, posters, books, sculptures, and the list goes on.

View his personal website here.

And a great article about him here.

You can do an online search and come up with dozens of online galleries and poster stores full of his work.