About Adam Parsons

Adam Parsons was born in Monmouth, Wales in 1971. Adopted at age six weeks he grew up the second of three children in a small village in Gloucestershire, England.

Fascinated by art as a young boy, it wasn’t until the divorce of his parents in 1979 that he began drawing primarily from imagination, an alternative to the usual playing of children’s toys. By the beginning of high school, with the encouragement of teachers an his mother, he decided to goal for becoming a commercial illustrator. After leaving high school, he gained employment in the art department of a local newspaper where he worked and continued his studies in graphic design.

In September 1991 Parsons moved to Japan. He’d always been fascinated by the culture and language of the far east. The intense and drastic change to his life also influenced his work in a dramatic way. As a commercial illustrator, Parsons worked mainly with magazines and monthly published books, although he was also involved with educational illustration for children. During this time, he studied a great deal about other artists illustrators and painters, motivating him to produce many works in many styles out of his normal range. In 1995 however, leaning back into his own now developed style of painting, he went on to win “Best New Illustrator” in the Tokyo Museum in Ueno‘s “Tokyo-ten” award with “The Valley of Rhyme.”

From 1996, influenced by Dali, Tanguy, Bellmer and many other painters, he began his move from illustration to surrealism. His exhibition that following year at the Tokyo Museum was greeted with mixed reviews because of the drastic change. As he continued his creative journey, he moved over fully to abstract by 1997.

In 1998 Parsons produced over 200 pieces for the year. It also led to his styled being altered again, self- labeled, “Abstract Automatism.” In 1999 he moved to the United States leaning back on to his illustrator path, yet moving to another creative medium, namely the computer.

Practically falling into the profession, graphic design was to play an extremely large roll in his life for the next five years with paintings not being quite so mass produced. He went back and forth between all three of the four art mediums. Illustrations, surrealism, abstract art and now digital expression too. He also weighed in heavily into the digital documentation of current works to reach a wider audience.