Artists

Focus on: Patrick Palmer

How did you find your voice as an artist?

As a child I loved drawing and creating things so I have always had an artistic voice of sorts.

I left my job in media when I was 40, took a year off, did up my London flat and went to art college. After that I gradually built up a body of work, built a website and my work started to sell. Fortunately a few galleries started to notice me and my artistic voice grew louder.

Has your approach and process changed throughout your artistic career?

For years I worked purely in charcoal, now I work in oils. The process is quite similar – I still use my fingers to blend and smudge the paint just as I did with the charcoal. I often like to leave some of my accidental smudges in the final work.

Oil is far more forgiving than anything else as you can just paint over it again and again. You can take risks.

I used to work exclusively from life models but as my paintings can sometimes take a year or more to produce I now work from photos.

When I started out I just had an easel in the utility room but now I have a lovely studio in my flat. So things have changed considerably. I now make my own canvases too.

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Crying Lightly (Red Chalk), 2017, 42×30 cm

Is there a subject that you find difficult to capture with painting?

Fingers and toes – too fiddly – I try to avoid them unless they are important to the overall balance and composition. Too much detail in an unimportant area can distract attention away from the important areas/focal point

I don’t like painting objects and tend to keep them out of my work.

When did you start painting nudes and what do you find fascinating about them?

I joined a life-drawing class when I moved to London at the age of 23. I then had an office job for many years but would always get excited about going to the weekly life-drawing class in Notting Hill.

It was such a challenge, and so much harder to get right than if you are drawing an object – the viewer may not notice if a tree is drawn slightly inaccurately but they know immediately and instinctively if a head is too small.

And it amazed me how everyone’s drawing was so different. There are limitless permutations.

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Monica, 2017, 70×50 cm

What have been the highlights of your artistic career?

– Exhibiting with Belgravia Gallery and Box Galleries in London.

– Nearly having one of my images in all the bedrooms of the Miami Hilton (they changed their minds at the last minute).

– Being included in Saatchi Online Catalogue 2016.

– Having one of my paintings on the front cover of a book called Musings in Yellow.

– Being accepted into the Discerning Eye 2017.

Which artists do you admire?

Lautrec, Klimt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Rodin and Michael Clark.

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Absence in oil, 2017, 30×21 cm

The artist’s website:http://patrickpalmer.co.uk/

Patrick Palmer on Singulart:https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/patrick-palmer-199

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