House of Seiko is pleased to present Politics & Theatre, the gallery’s second exhibition exploring the life and work of Ariel Parkinson (1926–2017). Examining two interconnected forces that shaped her practice, her political engagement and her decades-long involvement in American theatre, the exhibition traces how these seemingly distinct worlds repeatedly converged in Parkinson’s creative life.

Ariel Parkinson was a Berkeley-based artist whose career spanned more than five decades across painting, drawing, and scenography. She was one of the few women visual artists associated with the circle of poets and writers known as the Berkeley Bunch. She worked alongside figures including Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Kenneth Rexroth, Jess, and Anaïs Nin. Parkinson studied painting under Hassel Smith at the California School of Fine Arts and exhibited at institutions including the Oakland Museum of California, SFMOMA, and the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

From the…