Gary was born in Belfast in 1968, and grew up during the conflict in Northern Ireland. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, with an MA in Architecture in 1992 he travelled the world with a box of chalks. His anamorphic perspective, and socio-political street drawings were featured at international festivals in Europe, Australia, and North America. On one occasion he stayed with Lucienne Bloch and Steve Dimitroff – (apprentices of Diego Rivera), while they painted a fresco at Nashua Center for the Arts from whom he gained a taste for public art with social commentary. He was invited back home to Belfast to undertake a commission at the Ulster Museum during the ceasefires of 1995. Emigrating to the US in 1996, he worked as a set renderer and muralist on MTV music videos and feature films, while establishing his studio practice in Venice, (a venue on the Venice Artwalk from 2000-2018). Travels in East Africa were the focus of his early work – ‘Journey to Zanzibar’ – a series of paintings and writings documenting a voyage from the banks of Lake Malawi to the island of Zanzibar – published as limited editions by Fathom Gallery. ‘Distilled Landscapes’ in sumi ink were the subject of a solo show with Tarryn Teresa Gallery at Bergamot station in 2008. A period spent living at a meditation retreat near the border to Mexico gave rise to a series of contemplative color field paintings – exhibited at Tarryn Teresa Gallery in a solo show entitled – ‘Moments of Stillness’. In 2013 he was invited to participate in the Bienal del Sur, Panama, and the world street-painting festival in Holland, 2015 and 2016. Gary now paints full-time – dividing time between his studio work in Los Angeles, working on several publications, and developing an Artist Residency Program in an ancient village in the South of France. He has undertaken public art projects with non-profit organizations such as Friends of Balona Wetlands, A Place called Home, and Venice Community Housing, and participates annually in the Venice Artwalk Auction to benefit the Venice Family Clinic. The loss of his home in the recent fires in Los Angeles has brought about another shift and the new work is a series of whimsical abstracts using discarded studio off-cuts with a vivid palate of spray paints on canvas.
Studio Work:
Journey to Zanzibar is a series of narrative paintings and writings documenting travels in East Africa, from the banks of lake Malawi to the island of Zanzibar – focused on peoples who live in symbiosis with nature – published as a collection of limited edition prints by Fathom Gallery.
Distillations : abstract landscapes in Japanese sumi ink.
Particulate Fields : color meditations with pure pigment glazes – intended as a vehicle for contemplation on the nature of nature itself.
String Fields : whimsical paintings in acrylic spray paint using discarded studio debris – reflecting the motion of vibrating strings on the quantum scale.
Publications :
On the Nature of Nature – a codex – Lumen Press, 2020 | Journey To Zanzibar– Lumen Press, 2018 | Chalk on Street – 2015 Amazon | A Carpet of Dream – 1996 RJD Enterprises | Memoires of a Streetpainter – (unpublished) – diaries and short stories
Selected Collections :
Ulster Museum, Belfast | Catherine Zeta Jones | Jamie Harris | Halle Berry | Carlo Siliotto | Zoe Bell
viewing by appointment.
Instagram : @garypalmerart
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