Erik Parker’s “Loaded” At Loren’s Paggi House.

Don’t miss your chance to see “Loaded,” an appointment-only gallery show at The Loren Hotel’s iconic Paggi House featuring visual artist Erik Parker’s paintings and works on paper spanning 2012 to the present—featuring his signature “dreamlike landscapes, funky cartoonish portraits, and layered word paintings.” Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1968 and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Parker describes himself as a “punk rock skater kid,” influenced early by MAD Magazine and the DIY spirit of underground culture. The imagery stacks references to “punk, hip hop, skateboarding, graffiti, and 1970s psychedelic aesthetics” alongside satire, Surrealism, Pop, and Expressionism for a “unique kaleidoscopic effect”—a collision that mirrors the “over saturation, density and pace of visual imagery today.”

And it’s all installed in the Paggi House’s three exhibition spaces—The Loren’s novel standalone gallery, which, as the Observer reports, “takes the ‘art hotel’ concept to a whole new level by opening a standalone gallery dedicated to contemporary art.”

Meet Erik Parker: A German-born American artist whose paintings channel “psychedelia, comic books, and the Chicago Imagists” into dense, surreal worlds of color and satire. His work ranges from “tropical, Dr. Seuss-like landscapes to distorted faces and political imagery,” driven by his belief that “we live in a loaded time… [so] these are multi-task paintings with constant streams of information coming in.” Artsy describes his style as “vivid, hallucinatory… combining portraiture and landscapes with the aesthetics of psychedelia, comic books, and graffiti art,” often featuring “neon-drenched scenes… flowers, waves, and distorted faces.” Born in Stuttgart in 1968 and raised in San Antonio, Parker studied under Peter Saul at UT Austin and now lives in Brooklyn, with work held by institutions including the Whitney Museum, MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Hammer Museum.

Meet Paggi House At The Loren:

Paggi House is part of The Loren’s push to take art hotels “to a whole new level” by opening a “standalone gallery dedicated to contemporary art and the artists who define it,” as The Observer reports. The space is anchored by a historic one-story brick home built by Italian entrepreneur Michael Paggi prior to the Civil War, now recognized as an Austin Historic Landmark, a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. After sitting empty for nearly a decade, the building was restored—“removing non-historic elements… covering a historic well for protection and enclosing the courtyard to create an outdoor event and exhibition space.” Few hotels have gone this far—Paggi House now hosts four exhibitions annually, spotlighting both Austin artists and global names, with a mission to “expos[e] new pieces, artists and ideas within a space.”

When: Beginning Friday, February 6 | Where: Paggi House | Tickets: Viewing by appointment only—email atx.concierge@thelorenhotel.com or fill out the form here.

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