Wilma Parker is a San Francisco–based artist with a unique, individually held personal style. One that has nothing to do with abstraction, realism, or surrealism– the images change, but the style does not. The works in her studio are not a lifetime production to be saved and recorded, but are all works in progress. Realism means more than you can see, an image of abstraction means more than you cannot. 

Her studio practice bridges traditional and contemporary methods, combining photography, drawing, oil painting, and airbrush techniques. Working from manipulated slide photographs, she constructs dynamic, cropped compositions that blur the boundaries between history, documentation, and imagination. Parker’s subjects are wide-ranging, all unified by a meticulous attention to light, structure, and composition.  

Parker’s longstanding relationship with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard form a central theme. Selected by the Navy to create Homecoming NAS Alameda (1996) in commemoration of the base closure, she continues to explore the interplay between mechanical power, human service, and the forces of nature. Her contributions have earned her the Honorary title of Admiral, Plank Holder, and recognition as the first artist-in-residence aboard the museum ship USS Hornet in Alameda, California. Homecoming NAS Alameda hangs at Lemoore Airforce Base in Lemoore, CA where Wilma is the contributing artist.

A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA) and the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA), Parker has served as a trustee of RISD and is an active member of the U.S. Coast Guard Art Program, the American Society of Marine Artists, the Salmagundi Club, and Tailhook. Her work for the Blues and Royals is held in the Household Cavalry Archive Museum in Windsor, UK. Among her honors are the George Gray Award from the Coast Guard Art Program (1994) and the U.S. Department of Labor American Women Purchase Award (1974).

Since 1980, Parker’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in more than 20 museum collections, including the National Museum of Naval Aviation (Pensacola, FL), the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Frye Art Museum (Seattle, WA), the Museum of Fine Arts (Springfield, MA), the Horse Guards Museum (Windsor, UK), and the Yergeau Musée d’Art International (Montreal). In 2009, she was featured in the Robert Rauschenberg Tribute Show at the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur, Texas.