Stephen Palmer
The starting point for Stephen Palmer’s recent paintings and drawings is a model made from a sheet of white or black A4 paper that has been defaced through a series of actions. The paper may be first scribbled on with blue or red biro, and sometimes more defined geometric shapes are added also in biro. It is then folded, screwed up, ripped and finally unfolded as if an attempt has been made to once again make the paper good. Many of these models get discarded before one of them seems right to be the subject of a painting or drawing, rendered in gouache or pencil on another sheet of A4. The resulting works reflect both an undoing of formal geometry, grid systems and mark making, and a celebration of negation as a positive, creative act.
Stephen Palmer lives and works in London. He received a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Winchester School of Art and an MA Fine Art from Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Back Put Together It’, Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne (2019), ’The Flesh of Thought’, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London, ‘Creekside Open 2019’, APT Gallery, London, ‘40 Celsius’, ASC Art House, Croydon (2019), ‘Humble As Hell’, The Kurt Schwitters Merzbarn, Elterwater, Ambleside (2017), and ‘Second Glances’, Michaela Helfrich Gallery, Berlin (2016).