Hometown: Pasadena, CA
Visual Arts Category: Painting
DAVID PALMER's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the US, and appears in numerous public and private collections. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, an Artist's Grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and a residency at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. He has also created digital effects for over a dozen feature films, including The Polar Express, Spider-Man 3, and the first Harry Potter movie. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
"My paintings combine the vocabulary of Pop Art with a classical sensibility. They are inspired by dreams, childhood memories, nature and contemporary culture. Their surfaces are distressed, revealing patches of underlying color, reminiscent of aging frescoes and peeling billboards. When I start a painting, I don’t know what it’s going to look like when it’s finished. I like to discover the image as I work on it. I start with an idea, but at some point the painting takes on a life of its own, and it leads me to a place I couldn’t have predicted. It’s like having a conversation, or taking a walk in a new neighborhood."
