The show is titled All The Time and reflects the artists’ busy life as a school teacher and step-mother to five children. 

“When I am painting I think I have all the time in the world,” Parkes said. “But I don’t.

“Day to day is so timetabled, so structured, so busy, that when I do find the time to allow myself to paint it’s because I have spare time.”

Parkes’ works are intricate portraits of a fantastical and often childlike world, painted in gouache.

“It’s just happy people in a perfect little world with lots of intensity around them and colour and suns and moons,” she said. 

Just one painting can take an entire week to produce. 

“That is the part of it I love the most, I am happy to be in that painting for 40 or 50 hours,” she said. 

Parkes has been painting for all her adult life and some of her childhood. The work continues her distinctive style. 

“It has developed. It’s matured and intensified,” she said.

“I am definitely a better painter … when I am painting a lot it seems like every painting gets better. The more you do it, the better you get.

“The faces have changed, the faces have matured, the faces have lines on them, they are not just children’s faces anymore.

“I don’t know if they are all self-portraits or not, some of them will be. Some are just my fantastic world.”

That world is represented by jesters, suns, moons, beautifully clothed characters in medieval garb and harlequin patterns, lace and ribbons.

“It is a nice place to be,” Parkes said, in contrast to “the very cruel world we actually live in”.

“I want to create something that is perfect and untouched and childlike,” she said. 

“It’s fun and it’s silly and that’s what I like, I love to be silly.”

All The Time runs until December 18. 

Cooks Hill Galleries is located at 67 Bull St, Cooks Hill.