The London Six, 1984

In 1984 Parkin organized Suncor Crossroads, a national touring exhibition of paintings that was sponsored by Suncor Incorporated.

“Suncor, the big oil company, hired me to do an exhibition about their crossroads in Ontario—all the different cities where they did business: Kingston, Ottawa, Windsor, Toronto—featuring works about the city.

“This piece by John Boyle, about London, was one of my favourite paintings in the exhibition. It shows the members of the city’s famous Nihilist Spasm Band, including Murray Favro (not holding an instrument) and Greg Curnoe (with a kazoo). Like the Nihilist Party of Canada that was founded in 1963, the band used humour to reject traditional beliefs. In the painting Boyle also includes London artists Paul Peel and Jack Chambers, as well as London’s first mayor, Francis Evans Cornish. The car in the sky is a reference to the ‘London Six’—a London, Ontario–built automobile popular in the early 1920s.”