Brad Parker - Hawaii USA

"My art is my personal celebration of a creative reinvention of a foolish misinterpretation of an ancient mythology that sought to solve the mystery of the "breath of life" that eternally and precariously surfs the complete expanse between the bottomless sea and the floating shadow land of preexistence in the inconceivable heights of the sky. 

Trying not just to live... but, to live aloha.

MY LIFE THUS FAR: or "The Strange Case of Brad (Tiki Shark) Parker".

Brad "Tiki Shark" Parker is an artist / resident of the active volcanic island of Hawaii. 
The Big Island. 
His art journey began when he was thrown out of an advanced painting class at UCLA, by a professor who told me him could not be taught because he was "an illustrator not an artist!" For many years he believed this. He believed the "Art World" axiom that "painting is dead". But soon he discovered that art was rising from the grave! Robert Williams was breaking down the walls between lowbrow and highbrow and showing art that made Parker's heart sing and dance, and made his DNA mutate! Brad transitioned from a commercial illustrator into a fine artist. He ceased taking all Hollywood storyboard and illustration jobs, spent every red cent he had, and moved to the Big Island to be near the source: the burning hot lava center or the environmental/geological catalyst that spawned the birth of "Tiki" art hundreds of years ago. Later tiki art, washed tsunami-like onto American shores as "Hawaiiana" in the 50's, and again as "Tiki Culture" in current hipster-kitsch vernacular. 

"What I create has little to do with traditional Hawaiian art, or the art most galleries in Hawaii show: tourist art of dolphins, and sea scapes. What I do is Polynesian pop-surrealistic art. Living and making art on the edge of this volcano, I witness the natural beauty, the cataclysmic clash of cultures, and the strange devolution of primitive art into kitsch and evolving back up again into Modern Pop Art and yet again into my own personal obsession. I cannot stop pealing away the historic layers of icons so changed that they have become the opposite of what they started out as. Figures feared as war gods placated by human sacrifice and used in possible black magic death rituals are now copied out of museum catalogs and reproduced over seas as plastic good luck Tikis and handed to children. Which is the point. Man looks at the horror and meaninglessness of life, and tires to make sense of it. Time steps on and horror becomes comedy, yet still we seek the meaning of it all. What happens when we face our last sunset? Is there any strange idol or being waiting for us on that twilight shore to take us and show us where we go next? I think my art is hopeful. The human imagination raging against the void. Nothing is certain, so anything is possible."
Aloha.

And now, on to da' Highlights of my life as an artist:

One fateful summer in my late pre-teens I discover the double philosophical perspectives of the writing of H. P. Lovecraft and Heavy Metal music. It is the summer I am over come with a sense of cosmic awe, wonder, and fear of what is beyond this physical world.

I think it was the exact reading of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" and listening to Judas Priest's album "Sad Wings of Destiny" that made me nervously wonder if I'd step through an invisible inter-dimensional doorway on the walk home through corn fields on the way home from school. 

My young mind burns with the need to explore these thoughts & questions of the meaning of the universe - and I look for reasons for my life by drawing in art pads. (little did I know this was the first step on a path that would take the rest of my life to travel.)

60's -70's. My family moved, a lot. Seemed like about every 6 months. Were we on the run from the law? Were we part of a traveling carnival show? Were we under a voodoo curse? You pick. Point is, I was all ways the "new kid", so I didn't have a lot of friends. Thus, I was a loner, who filled his his childhood with reading comics, books, and his creating a world of my own with my art. 

Now, to understand the irony of the next two items you must know I am a huge fan of the artist Robt. Williams. Known as the father of Low Brow art movement. 

80's I move to LA. I enroll in LACC. The same school Robt. Williams went to. 

To make ends meet, I take an illustration job at a magazine company that created many martial art magazines - one of which was "Black Belt" Magazine. Robt. Williams was art director at Black Belt magaine a few years before I arrived. 

Strange. Fate must have snickered seeing me struggle along the same twisted artistic road as it's previous victim... amoung countless others no doubt. Still, funny that me and my hero ran along the same early career roller coaster track. 

Next, I head to Collage to take Art. I move in with my friend, and 1st art mentor (The greatly talented, and amazingly creative Chrstopher Michael). 

We live in an haunted apartment in Hollywood. But, we don't notice (that much) it's hanuted. We are so into being "artists" we don't really let the strange happenings bother us - ART was more important. Heck, ART was more important than anything - even paying the rent. We were crazy art students. 24/7. ART was what you did, ART was what your were. 

80's. I get thrown out of an advanced painting course at UCLA by the professor. In front of the class, he screeches at me, "I cannot teach you! You are not an artist, you are an Illustrator!"

Christopher and I move out of the "Hanuted Apartment", and go on our own paths.

Side note about the haunted apartment:
A few weeks later a funny thing happens: I get a phone call from the guy who moved into the haunted apt. He said the land lord gave him my #. He wants to know how I dealt with the weird "goings on". I said, well, I'm an artist - who's got time to be freaked out by ghosts? I was going to class and making Art and it was so much more important than noticing cabinet doors opening, and knocking on the walls, or the TV turning itself on. I remember all these things happening of course, but in a off hand way, and not really giving a hoot, ...cause I had to make ART.

Poor guy, that didn't really comfort him at all.

I get work making "Ninja" comic books with my friend and 2nd mentor Mr. Gross.Yes, it's at the Martial Art's Magazine company that Robt. Wiliiams worked. Rick Gross showed me that comic art could be Fine art 

Ninja's stop selling. I have to look for nre work and leave the magaine trade.

I work on "The Fools Errand" computer puzzle game with my best buddy and 3rd mentor: Cliff Johnson, and I art direct with him at his prodction company "Fun House".

I strike out on my own and art direct at a R & D lab for SNK and the NEO GEO video game machine. We have all the money we need, all the toys we desire. We build the first motion capture lab in the U.S. Playing arcade games all day long and calling it "work". Hire my favorite martial artists to put into the motion capture room... all pie in the sky dreams. But, making video games. A blip on the screen of art history. (remember video arcades? Samurai Showdown? Anyone?) No? I didn't think so. Lesson learned: never make art for a "platform" that no one will ever be able to view again. 3 years later the software and hardware is obsolete, no one can see all that art I made for game machines no one remembers. 

I should have been putting brush to canvas back then.

On, I'm living in a cool pad on the beach in Venice Beach California. After reading a book about the history of noisy hanutings - I try one of the experiments done at a university, that is mentioned in the back of the text. It works. While I think it's sorta cool to have summoned some kind of poltergiest, my room mate is not so happy. He demands I stop the "experiment". I say yes, and in a last fit of anger, the "unseen other roomate" knocks over several thing in my art studio as we watch. Quite interesting. 

To me, it proves the theory in the book. Ghosts are not departed spirits of the dead, but something else we do not understand. These unknown beings will pretend to be ghosts, just to be given attention and to feed off our psychic energy, or what ever we humans do when we show these things attention.

Perhaps the Bible and the Quran are right in calling these strange beings "demons" or "Jinns". All very interesting, but not really useful info. Making a living becomes more important as life goes on. 

90's. San Diego Comicon. I have a 15 second elevator ride - only me and Stan Lee. He see's my art portfolio as I'm on my way out of the hotel to the San Diego Convention Center (for the Con) to show it to Editors. He claps me on the shoulder and says" Go get 'em Tiger!" Really, one of the high points of my life. See, Spider Man's name is Peter Parker. My middle name is Peter. So I was often called Peter Parker, or Spiderman, spidie, or web head as a kid. And in the comics, as written by Stan Lee, once in a while Peter Parker was called "tiger" by Mary Jane. 

I work for DC and Marvel. I make a Green Lantern Graphic Novel. I discover they are, and will always be, the home of my beloved comic book heroes, but... they are also big companies there to make money. Just, ask Alan Moore.

Comic book signing at the San Diego Comic Con... at the DC booth. Surreal fantastic dream come true moment. 

I live in Venice Beach - in another haunted house. Yes, another haunting! At this point I'm starting to think I'm a magnet. In this house, I saw a strange dark figure a few times wandering the hall. Didn't really bother me too much - I was, again, more focused on making a living at commercial art. My room mate however was not so thrilled. One night, after he felt a cold hand on his shoulder, I had to talk him out of his terror for a few hours. 

But as the years go buy, and adult-hood takes over, you no longer have those moments of supernatural spark. Do we lose our child openess to the things our senses don't normally pick up. We're more focused on the paying the rent, taxes, fitting everything into the day... not much room left for ghosts and goblins. I don't think they go away, we just don't notice them because they are no longer important, and we just don't have time for them. Don't feed a stray cat, and it will go away. 

I go to "Burning Man" nine years in a row. Wild fire art fest started by radical performance artists from San Francisco. First years, no rangers, no police. No body offical knew it was going on... way out there in the middle of the Nevada desert. No spectators. No rules. No laws. Just ART. ART. Art that could KILL YOU. 

90's. Work with my friend (the brilliant) Ryan Brookhart on a toy review magazine named "Go Figure". We are so far ahead of our time - an art magazine about action figures. We love it. The industry loves it. It dosn't make any money... and it crashes and burns. 

Late 90's. I learn story boarding in Hollywood. Then, work with my friend Victor Salva on the movie "Jeeper Creepers" and helping in creating "the Creeper". He let's me into the whole movie making process - start to finish. Like going to summer camp with your friends and making a monster movie. Wonderful experience. Horrible experience , too. Everything went wrong, too little money, but we laughed our way through most of it and Victor's amazing skills and talent turned a dissaster into a cult classic. 

I join the union: Hollywood local 790: Illustrators and Matt Painters. Part of my pay check goes to my agent. The other part goes to pay my union dues. Welcome to Hollywood.

I worked with David Fincher on a commercial. After a half hour of talk about what he wanted in the TV ad, after that, I talk to him for an hour about his fresh movie release: Fight Club. I'm in fan-boy bliss. He really needed to hear something good after so many critics had trashed his film. It was so much fun, he's a very smart, and talented, story teller.

Tim Sullivan (good friend and movie maker) takes me to meet KISS on their come back tour. They are rehearsing at a sound stage in Hollywood. On the out side it looks like a dump, on the inside it's all state of the art recording studios. There are a lot of buildings like that in Hollywood. In the parking lot, we talk to Gene Simmons about old horror movies. Gene waves his hand over my face and rolls his eyes back into his head as he performs a scene from an old silent horror film. 
This moment proved to be too much for me. Some where, deep in my mind, my inner- teenager who had grown up in Nebraska and had spent uncountable hours absorbed in the album "Destroyer", went into overload: like Robby the Robot in "Forbidden Planet" , my circuits blew and sparks shot out of my brain as I was grocking that Gene frickin' Simmons was performing just for me. I started laughing and I think I was going to scream and pass-out like one of those chicks at a Beatles Concert, but Tim moved the conversation along, and the world swam back into focus for me and I didn't look like too much of a slack jawed fan.

I get to work with Rob Zombie on an Ozzy Osbourne music video. Best part was when both cameras broke and we had to just sit around the stage, hangin with Rob Zombie for an hour. Sitting on these ratty old couches, I was too embarassed to ask him to sign all my White Zombie CDs I had in my art bag. I just sit and talk with him. Damn he is one cool dude.

Hanging out with Clive Barker. I've had the honor to hang out with him several times over the years, and every time I'm so awed by him I always stammer and gawk, and generally make a foolish fan of myself. He is like horror pop culture royality. And is still the nicest guy you'd ever meet.

I got to work on Dream Girls with Bill Condon. Huge budget... jeez the money, the studio glamour. Unreal. 

Oh yeah, and once... I was at Mark Hamil's house and, after he first declined, he treated us and did "The Joker" voice. Wow. Shivers up your spine! Totally awesome. Really, Mark is THE best Joker, ever ...or ever will be.

I notice I have more grey hair than the directors I'm taking orders from. A voice deep inside me says it's time to move on and create my own visions. I stop taking Hollywood gigs - and become a starving artist again.

I start a beach towel company with my friend Abbas. I love Tiki Culture, so we call it Tiki Shark, inc. 

Tiki Magazine features me as an "Up and coming Tiki Artist".

Then, I, finally put brush to canvas... and found my passion.

2004. I have an art show in my friend's empty house. I paint tiki themed paintings. Every piece sells in 45 minutes. It pays for our move to Hawaii. Yeah, we move to Hawaii.... why? Because we can (!)

I'm invited to be in a tiki themed group art show sponsered by Tiki Magazine, in San Diego California.

I do the CD cover art and liner notes for The Tikiyaki Orchestra's first album : "Stereoexotique".

I'm invited into a tiki art group show at Brick and Mortar Gallery, in Hollywood California. 

I get into Sargent's Fine Art Gallery in Lahina, on Maui.

I am invited into a tiki - tarot card themed art show at "the Freaky Bou-tiki Gallery" in San Diego.

My painting "The Moon of Manakoora" is featured on the cover of Arts and Culture on Maui Magazine.

Tiki Magazine features my work on the cover, and writes an article on me. 

2008 My Painting "Forbidden Island" wins entry in SPECTRUM15: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.

2009 My painting "Bela Lugosi Has A Zombie" Wins entry into SPECTRUM 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.

2010 My painting "Diga Diga Doo" wins entry in to SPECTRUM 17 The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.

""The Moon of Manakoora" is reproduced as the cover of Big Island mystery novel / cook book / treasure hunt "Captain Cooked" by S. P. Grogan.

2010, I was invited to be in a group art show at "La Luz de Jesus Gallery" in Los Angeles, and all my friends showed up to wish me well and all my paintings sold. 

2010. I'm invited into a group show "False Idols" at Bold Hype Gallery in Orlando, Florida.

2010. Issue # 21 of KUSTOM magazine prints a 16 page supplement on my art. The packaging is amazing, as they make teh supplement look like a vintage pulp magazine Polybagged in with the magazine. This is a French magazine, and is released in Europe mostly. 

2010. Sept 23 - Oct 14th. I have my first Museum Retrospective at the Manhattan Beach Creative Arts Center. It sells out. 

2010. I get into the gift shop at the Royal Kona Resort in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. My first week there, my art out sells everything else (including SHAG).

July, 2010. Maui Time Weekly Magazine uses my painting "Jungle Witch" on the cover of the "Best of Maui" issue. It's printed in 3-D and comes with red / blue glasses. What a hoot!

2011, I get invited to show my work in the WYLAND OCEAN FRONT gallery in Kailua-Kona. I get the primo spot in the front window, a real honor! Months later I'm still there, my work seems to sell well to tourists coming to the Big Island. 

2011, I get invited to be in the 25th anniversary show for La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los angeles, and the published book that will go along with the show. The show will be in October. Quite an honor, as La Luz is famous for being the birth place of "Low Brow Art". And I get to be in the same book as many of my artistic heros. 

I get a line of "Monsters on Vacation in Hawaii " post cards published and sold here in Hawaii in time for Halloween 2011. I'm really happy about that. They are made by The Islander Group and came out great. 

Then I get other stuff published: A Calendar, Swanky post card set, "vintage" high end art cards, Birthday cards, refrigerator magnets, even Halloween cards. All made and sold here in Hawaii by Pacifica Island Arts. They look great, and I am really thrilled and honored I've helped add to the world of Hawaiianna Pop culture.
So.... I live on an active volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean... painting pop surrealistic art that is about the American "pop-culture" that I absorbed as I grew up. 

If I had all the money I'd ever need, like millions ya know, I think I would still make art. I think I would HAVE to - it may be the only thing that keeps me sane. 

OK, secret wish time... If I had big $$, I'd open a big comic book shop here on the Big Island. HOW can the big Island NOT have A LOCAL COMIC BOOK SHOP! The Closest Comic Book shop is on the island of Oahu! Sheesh! I mean, the kids on this island grow up without having a local Comic book shop! That's just not right! I have a secret wish to open a comic book shop / art studio where kids can get exposed to books, comic books, action figures, art, and perhaps even watch me paint my pop art (through a window looking into my studio or something I guess). I think that would ignite the all important creative spark in the young minds of local kids, and help create the next generation of artists, writers and dreamers. And that'd be the most important thing I could do with my life.

Thanks for reading my strange life/journey/tale ...thus far.

Big Aloha from the big Island.
Brad~