This radiant work by Oliver Parson engulfs the viewer in the spiraling flow of a smiling woman's silky headwrap. The headwrap is a fashionable method of hair protection and expression of identity that is shared among women across the African diaspora.
Parson’s senior notebook includes his written philosophy of art, photographs of the artist’s works and his process, and a copy of his senior exhibition brochure. As a part of the Texas Southern art curriculum under Dr. John T. Biggers and Professor Carroll Harris Simms, students would create these notebooks to explain their artistry and showcase the works they created as students.
“Owl,” by Oliver Parson, features spiraled embellishments on the head and symmetrical holes on the wings, with a gray slip painted on the body. In the middle of the figure’s body, a crescent shape cradles a small egg, perhaps referencing owls’ nocturnal natures. Parson experimented with different clay colors in his terracotta sculptures.
This drawing by Oliver Parson shows a group of emaciated children seated on a checkerboard patterned floor. There is also a chick, just hatched from its egg, that seems to be struggling to survive. Parson has an incredible talent for conveying powerful emotions in his works. The checkerboard and other sacred geometry imagery appear frequently in the works of Dr. Biggers's students.
Parson’s painting shows a young girl shielding her face. To the left, a crow holds a coin and a dollar bill is on a fishing line; to the right Jesus is crucified, below a perched crow. The crows may allude to Jim Crow, which made racism law from after the Civil War until the 1960s; crows are also a symbol of death. The dollar bill as bait perhaps suggests the corrupting nature of money.
Parson's print shows a face with closed eyes and a solemn expression on its face. In the background, three crosses stand ominously, alluding to the crosses where Jesus, Dismus, and Gestas were crucified. Dark, crosshatched swirls fill the entire composition. Parson and other TSU students learned the crosshatching technique from Dr. Biggers and used it to create smooth, detailed shapes.
This work, by Oliver Parson, is a calm and dreamlike scene of a child sitting in a prairie, as an angel and a person both race towards him. Both figures may represent salvation; the person aims to rescue him from death, while the angel tries to save him from Earth. A faint glow emanates from the child.
