Matthew Parker
Hard Body
Matthew Parker’s installations of foam rocks and boulders are shaped by his experiences creating a body of work without a working body.
- September 4 - October 17, 2025
- Opening: Thursday, September 4, 6:00 — 8:00pm
Second Reception: Thursday, October 2, 6:00 — 8:00pm
In 2023, after nearly a decade of unexplained and worsening health, Parker was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis following a sudden relapse event that left him unable to feel the right side of his body. Going forward, he began to reevaluate his approach to art-making—using lightweight, yielding materials to create replicas of a common object. What started with a single foam rock has now grown into an expansive installation of dozens of large faux boulders and thousands of small, hand-carved imitation pebbles.
This body of work is, in itself, a durational performance in which the slow, repetitive act of carving each stone became a ritual of adaptation, turning the ordinary into something both accessible and paradoxically demanding. Though the forms are light and soft, the labor embedded in each of them reveals an invisible weight. Parker’s practice reflects both constraint and persistence, transforming physical limitation into a quiet yet absurd endurance piece almost three years in the making.
Hard Body asks us to consider the ontologies of disability and ability in regard to space and our relationship with labor. Much of the exhibition was informed by two key texts: The Myth of Sisyphus, in which philosopher and author Albert Camus uses the Greek myth of Sisyphus—a man condemned to endlessly roll a boulder uphill only for it to roll back down— as a metaphor for the human struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world; and Health Communism, which argues that true health liberation requires dismantling the capitalist systems that exploit illness and disability, proposing a radical reimagining of care and the value of all bodies beyond productivity.
Artist Talk: Saturday, September 27, 2:00-3:00pm Join Parker and learn more about Hard Body. No registration is required to attend the talk. Light refreshments will be provided.
About the Artist
Matthew Parker is a disabled multimedia artist who works in sculpture, photography, and installation. He uses foam boulders to create physical barriers that implore audiences to reconsider their relationships with what is hard, heavy, or mobile. His work humorously explores the relationship between disabled bodies existing in abled spaces. Parker has recently exhibited his work at Coffin Farm in Redmond, Specialist Gallery, and his Seattle storage unit, 1A47. Based in Seattle, Parker earned a BFA in Visual Art from Cornish College of the Arts in 2022 and is currently working toward his MFA at School of the Art institute of Chicago.