Artist profile
Simon
Palmer
Simon Palmer is a Sydney-based artist primarily focused on abstraction and abstracted landscape, producing works that investigate emotive responses to relationships between colours and their ability to evoke moods or memories.
A self-taught artist, Simon’s background is in architecture and graphic design. Having experimented over a long period with differing art techniques, styles and media, his main focus in the interaction of colour contrasts, transitions and edges.
He is particularly fascinated by the ‘middle-line’ state between pure abstraction and realistic representation. In recent landscapes he has employed a literal dividing line within the works that immediately push the subject from being perceived as representational, towards greater ambiguity. The division also serves a purpose – each half of the painting can be considered separately; or when viewed holistically, it shows the same subject viewable through the inference of passing time – such as altered light, or changed conditions. This process also allows exaggerated or unnatural colour pairings, where different elements become increasingly open to wider interpretation.
Artist Career Highlights
- Past prize exhibitions – finalist, semi-finalist and highly commended.
- Affordable Art Fair (Sydney / Melbourne) gallery representations 2023-2025.
- 9 solo gallery exhibitons, and inclusion in more than 25 joint and group exhibitions.
Artist Interview
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
Inspiration comes mainly from preparatory sketches or cropped elements of earlier works. Sometimes it is derived from colour combinations that I see in books, magazines or passing observations that I think would translate well into a painted format.
Tell us a bit about your story and how you came to be an artist
My mother was a successful commercial artist, and although she died when I was young, I’ve inherited the gene – so making art was unavoidable. I’ve been experimenting with directions of design and painting my whole life.
