The Latin expression tabula rasa pretty much describes Chris Parks’ life so far: A series of blank pages that he filled in as he went along.
He filled them with art.
Parks, who uses the professional name Palehorse, is celebrating 20 years in St. Petersburg with an exhibition – his first solo show in a decade – at the Morean Arts Center. It opens Oct. 10.
Like the artist, the exhibit is idiosyncratic. It’s a reflection of his personal journey, first as a freestyle graphic artist designing flyers for skateboard events, hardcore bands and Mexican wrestlers, to his gradual transition to adapting imagery from eastern philosophy and religion in bold, adventurous creations combining graphic design and paint.
“In my work,” Parks, 47, explains, “there are archetypes from India, from Japan, from Egypt, western archetypes, animal spirits, stories from all over.”
The choice of the show’s title, Shapeshifter, was immediate and final. “In artist terms, it would be the creative muse that we all have and listen to. In spiritual terms, the guru, or the inner guide.”
Life, it is said, is about the journey and not so much the destination. Born and raised in Venice, Florida, Chris Parks suffered from hip dysplasia as a child and underwent a series of painful surgeries.
He spent a lot of time in a wheelchair, and on crutches, and missed some school. “That,” he recalls, “was something that got me thinking, ‘What am I going to do as a career?’ Because I can’t do manual labor. What could I do that would be interesting and wouldn’t be just an office job? I wouldn’t be able to function with that.”
He took an interest in digital art and graphic design (“Windows 95 had just come out”) and worked hard at it, discovering he had natural artistic talent.
Once he was fully healed, Parks took up both surfing and skateboarding – he insists he didn’t like to be told ‘no’ – and became immersed in the area’s punk and metal scenes.
Designing posters for his own band led to work on behalf of other musicians, and he was hired by a local independent label to design record sleeves.
The first member of his family to attend college, he graduated from Ringling College of Art & Design with a degree in Graphic and Interactive Communications.
Drawn by the fertile band scene, and the fact that his future wife, Michelle Tannu, lived in the city, he relocated to St. Pete in 2002. He opened his first design shop, Blackout Creations, in collaboration with a tattoo parlor (the name was changed to Pale Horse Graphic Design and Gallery in 2008). And he hired a New York agent, who got him commissions for corporate clients. His reputation grew. He designed for global brands including National Geographic, Nike, FX, Under Armour, Pepsi and Hasbro, and for big-time bands including Foo Fighters, Rush and Queens of the Stone Age.
Still, something was missing.
“I first went to Thailand in 2004,” Parks explains. “That was where it really began for me. Before that, I considered myself an atheist. It was really going to Thailand, and seeing the temples there, and seeing the artwork and the sculptures … I really had a chip on my shoulder about religion. I grew up going to church and all of that, and as I got into college I rejected it. A lot of things that were wrong with the world were associated with religion.”
He was particularly taken with figures from Buddhist teachings, and was drawn to the Hindu god Hanuman, a monkey-like deity. “For an atheist metalhead skateboarder, I thought that was cool.” He began to read, and investigated the stories depicted in the art.
In 2012, Palehorse (the name originated with the Biblical story of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) and fellow St. Pete artist Tes One, with assist from the Vitale Bros., painted a massive mural on the back of the State Theatre.
State Lines was the first large-scale mural on a commercial city wall, and led to the creation of the SHINE Mural Festival in 2015. “The idea was art for the sake of art,” remembers Tes One, whose real name is Leon Bedore. “We were very serious about that. It was not tourist murals and pelicans.”
Bedore and Parks remain tight. “I’ve had a front-row seat of watching him evolve, and grow as an artist and an illustrator,” Bedore says. “And it’s been incredible. He takes the art of his perspective spiritualty, all the things that make him this one-of-one figure in St. Pete, and brings that to his work. It’s really unlike anything else.”
As he grew as an artist, Parks also matured as a person. He read the works of Ram Dass, and discovered The Essence of the Bhagavad-Gita As Remembered by Paramahansa Yogananda. That one was a life-changer.
“I don’t have a religion that’s singularly Hindu, Christian or Buddhist,” he declares. “I see all of those archetypes and those gods and goddesses, and stories in mythology, all as ideal worship. Not idol worship, ideal worship: I think of myself as a kid who loves stories. I get fascinated by characters in stories from religions and cultures all over the world. Folk heroes.
“And within those are life lessons, in order to become the best version of yourself in this lifetime.”
He dabbled in the natural psychedelic psilocybin “in a way to better myself. Not as a party drug, this was very intentional practice with it. It really helped me to break all my rules. Make me feel silly that I had all of these rules for who I am, what kind of music I like, what kind of things I like.”
And he began to practice meditation. “It’s absolutely part of who I am now. It’s led to seeking within the art. I first got interested in meditation as a way to invite creativity, visions, ideas. To tune outside of myself in order to allow something bigger to come in.
“I started feeling really silly about thinking I knew the answers. How little I actually knew. And to open myself to way more.
“And after about five years, I decided it was something I wanted to do every day for the rest of my life.”
It was 2020, the year of the pandemic, that Parks stopped accepting commercial client work, and concentrated on creating art purely for expression’s sake. He’d done a solo mural for SHINE the year before, and he liked the unfettered experience, so he used the great Covid-caused slowdown to re-focus his artistic goals.
“That year was so transformative for me,” he says. “I really kind of let go of who I was before that.” After a lengthy period of study, he took up the practice of Preya Yoga.
Today, he hosts a weekly meditation group on Wednesdays, and a Sunday Ananda Yoga session.
Parks is keenly aware that the art he manifests – he sells paintings and prints – can be taken on different levels. He’s not trying to sway anyone over to his particular way of thinking. Or being.
“In 2018 I created the whole entrance for a heavy metal festival, all with Hindu gods,” he chuckles. “I had a hundred-and-eight foot Vishnu. And nobody even thought twice about it. Everybody just thought it was cool.
“I’m very intentional with that. I do want to make things that are approachable at all levels. And then there are rabbit holes and portals – if you want to go deeper into it, it’s there.”
Shapeshifter: New and Select Works From Palehorse opens with a 5-8 p.m. reception Saturday, Oct. 10 at the Morean Arts Center, 719 Central Ave. Opening in conjunction is Practice Dying: A Skull & Bones Exhibit, featuring works by 30 artists including Palehorse, Tes One, Nicole Salgar, Miss Crit, BASK, Chad Mize, Johnny Vitale, Alex Heir, Andrea Pawlisz and others.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
