Michael Parkes was born in 1944, in Sikeston, Missouri, USA. After his school years he studied at the University of Kansas, and immediately after graduating was appointed a lecturer in graphic techniques first at the Kent State University and later in Florida. He taught at the University for five years, from 1965 to 1970, and then at the age of twenty-six, he and his wife went on a study trip to Europe and Asia. This journey meant a definitive departure from America. Since 1975 Michael Parkes has lived and worked in Spain. He has had one-man exhibitions in the USA, Spain, The Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Germany.
His style was in principle realistic, the subject matter magical, and Magic realism has characterised his work ever since. He has studied the esoteric doctrine of the East and the West, and his imagery is drawn from a range of wisdoms including the Kabbalistic an 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 and in bronze casting.