Ariel Parkinson: Politics & Theatre

House of Seiko is pleased to present Politics & Theatre, the gallery’s second exhibition exploring the life and work of Ariel Parkinson (1926–2017). About Politics & Theatre examines two interconnected forces that shaped Ariel Parkinson’s practice: her political engagement and her decades-long involvement in American theatre. From the late 1950s through the early 1980s, politics, theatre, and a private studio practice became overlapping platforms through which she confronted the events and contradictions of her time. The heightened realities of the stage often mirrored the political world beyond it, while contemporary life supplied its own cast of characters and dramatic structures. As a scenographer, Parkinson worked on productions including The Tempest, Ondine, Rilke’s Elegies, Madame Butterfly, Otello, Le Cid, and Carmina Burana. Experimental theatre placed her within the cultural environment developing around Berkeley during the 1960s, where poetry, performance, visual art, and political consciousness intersected. She was equally engaged with the Bay Area’s emerging ecological movement through Ecology Action, the Ecology Center, early recycling initiatives, and efforts to protect San Francisco Bay. Her political awareness also developed amid the anti–Vietnam War movement and later campaigns addressing automobile use, pollution, and California’s 1972 Proposition 9. The exhibition focuses on where these worlds become difficult to distinguish. Parkinson’s theatrical designs share concerns found throughout her paintings and drawings, while her political imagery adopts theatre’s symbolism, staging, exaggeration, and narrative compression. Together, the works reveal an artist translating the emotional impact of war, environmental destruction, power, spectacle, and social conflict across multiple creative forms. Read more Toggle Painting