Personal Statement

My name is Parson Glover. I started by sketching in the back of the class (around ages 8-10) while the teacher talked. I grew up loving paleontology. Dinosaur books and visits to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) had a great influence at a very young age on my interests. As I have grown older there have been many artists that have influenced me including Hiyao Miyazaki, Jean Giraud, Dougal Dixon, and Wayne Barlowe. 

 I admire the attention to detail in Jean Giraud’s comic book art. His highly detailed line art and colorful unique worlds capture my attention and lead me to focus more on detail in my own artwork. Wayne Barlowe, a film concept artist, creates exotic worlds that are simultaneously profoundly alien yet also believable and relatable. Barlowe’s extremely unique creature design inspires me to design my own creatures and experiment in unconventional ways. Filmmaker Hiyao Miyazaki and illustrator Dougal Dixon have influenced my artwork with the groundedness that they have cultivated in their own worlds. They both demonstrate great creativity as their art and designs portray either now-extinct animals or imagined future foreign worlds, breathing a feeling of life into their exotic terrain. Miyazaki’s films and their telling of amazing stories in beautifully unique worlds is something that has had a pivotal influence on me ever since I first saw Nausicaa in the back of my mom's car. Dougal Dixon’s artwork merges paleontology with artistry. Relatedly, I have explored the links between taxidermy and design at the Rhode Island School of Design during my summer 2023 coursework in color theory and pattern design, and I am currently working on artwork that merges a study of botany and invasive plants with design. I hope and aspire to one day foster the wonder that these artists–Hiyao Miyazaki, Jean Giraud, Dougal Dixon, and Wayne Barlowe–have created in their unique worlds. My artistic vision is to create concept art and creature design every inch as inspiring as theirs.

 I have long been drawn to fiction and the fantastical as the subject matter for my art. A sense of wonder emerges from my inspirations whether they are dinosaur books or the worlds of Miyazaki’s films. I work in traditional dry media and ink primarily. I also undertake digital art to gain experience relevant to future design projects, including those I might undertake in gaming.  I tend to draw creature designs and some character art, mostly in physical but increasingly in digital. Learning more about character and fashion design helps me to express my thoughts and interests in those media as well as on paper. 

 I want to discuss my portfolio in detail to explain more about my aims as an artist. In November 2023, I created a painting entitled “Ice, Bubbles” which is still life in acrylic. The painting was of a close-up view of an ice cube where the larger shape of the ice cube was out of frame on canvas. The painting was focused on portraying an everyday object but zoomed in enough so that it was indistinguishable. The process of creating this work increased my dedication as I needed considerable time to undertake the composition. I learned from the long nights I spent painting to love the process of making the work itself and to savor the finer strokes and pokes that made up my composition. More specifically, the painting was made up of hundreds of small, white, watery paint droplets on a deep blue background shifting in value from dark to light from the bottom to the top of the canvas. The watery droplets resembled the small bubbles that were frozen in the ice. The watery paint took time to dry. As I watched the paint slowly dry, I gained new insight into enjoying the process of painting, not just the results.

In the realm of video games, I have worked intermittently as a concept artist on multiple “mod projects” which are fan-created unofficial content for games. Mods can range from new worlds to stories, quests, and equipment. These mods can then be downloaded free online from community modding websites. A major mod project I am currently working on is that of Beyond Skyrim: Argonia, a mod that adds a large amount of custom, all-new game-sized content onto the pre-existing game that is Skyrim. From props to creature design, I have worked on different aspects of Argonia’s mystical swamps and jungles. Whether it's the sentient swampy trees or the giant snails of Blackmarsh, Beyond Skyrim: Argonia has consistently stretched the creativity and thought process of my art. Ultimately what inspires me, and my artwork is the wonder I find in many subjects. I hope to instill a sense of wonder in others through my work.