Specimens II

About the Photographer

Parker, Olivia

American, b. 1941

Olivia Parker was born in Boston and she studied art history at Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, earning a BA in 1963. Afterward she began a career as a painter. Self-taught as a photographer, Parker first started making photographs intensively in 1970, intrigued by the endless transformations of light and the possibilities this presents for the camera. In later decades Parker's photographs have centered on temporary constructions that she assembles in the studio, incorporating various objects and visual elements that open up a range of metaphorical meanings. Through the 1970s and 1980s Parker worked in both black and white and color, using a range from camera formats. In 1993 she began to work with digital imaging processes on a computer as well, using photographs as source material for detailed composite images.

http://oliviaparker.com/