Head Inside - Virginia Cohn Parkum, C. 1980s

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Head Inside*
Virginia Cohn Parkum, c. 1980s

In Head Inside, Virginia Cohn Parkum constructs a portrait that feels simultaneously assembled … Read more Head Inside*
Virginia Cohn Parkum, c. 1980s

In Head Inside, Virginia Cohn Parkum constructs a portrait that feels simultaneously assembled and obstructed, as though the figure is emerging through layers of concealment. The face is divided into zones of color—ochre, slate blue, muted violet, and gray—each applied in broad, opaque passages that resist seamless integration. Rather than modeling form through naturalistic transitions, Parkum builds the head as a composite structure, suggesting fragmentation of perception and identity.

A horizontal band sweeps across the lower portion of the composition, partially obscuring the figure’s torso and reinforcing the sensation of containment. This barrier-like gesture introduces a visual interruption that reads as both protective and restrictive, implying psychological enclosure. Behind the head, a dark vertical field marked with linear scratches resembles a grid or scaffold, evoking systems of order, confinement, or imposed structure against which the individual presence presses.

The eyes, uneven and asymmetrical, anchor the portrait’s emotional register. One appears sharply defined while the other dissolves into painterly ambiguity, creating an unsettling imbalance that suggests divided awareness. Above, a band of deep red caps the composition, lending the figure a charged, crown-like weight that oscillates between authority and burden.

Parkum’s brushwork alternates between deliberate blocks of paint and swift, gestural strokes, allowing the surface to retain evidence of its making. The resulting tension between construction and erasure mirrors the work’s central theme: a self held within, partially hidden and partially revealed. In this way, Head Inside becomes less a likeness than a meditation on interiority—an image of consciousness negotiating the pressures of containment, identity, and self-perception.
-Jonathan Flike

*The title of this work was assigned by Visard Gallery. See less