Stanley Palmer

Bio.
Where we have no control…[1]
Gentle yet determined, Stanley Palmer makes colourful long exposures of oceans and skies, brush, beach, valleys, pastures, rock formations and off-shore islands. Constructing a personal vision of specific locations marked and shaped by memory, history and loss, Palmer’s oeuvre graciously encompasses New Zealand. From the coastlines of Westland and the Poor Knight Islands to the roads north of Puhoi; from Whatipu to Karamea, from Maganese Point to Coromandel to the East coasts. The fragility and isolation of remote areas is made present, as are the majestic volcanoes and the prior lives of central Auckland suburbs and industrial areas.
Virtuosic and innovative, Palmer’s printmaking stretches to capacity pictorial space as well as the potential of his materials. Using a process involving the engraving of bamboo sheaths, Palmer’s rich prints often demonstrate multi-layered urban spaces dense with industry and crowded with lives lived. A signature palette sees burgundy and rust-like colours often contrasted with burred and inky shadows as well as scarred and pale timbers and skies. Within these earthy prints trees strain and twist throughout fractured and stratified landscapes that nonetheless are always rendered with warmth and sensitivity. Iced skies return within Palmer’s panoramic and often quite large scale oil paintings. Slightly hazy, these landscapes seem not quite in focus, filtered through recollection and Palmer’s process of painting on linen over initial black and white sketches. Ever present is a combination of high-key blue skies and vivid green pastures with careful attention paid to the gracious curves of roads and coastlines and the contours of distinctive native vegetation and rock formations. There is an alternation between the cool colours of skies, sands and grasses to more earthed hues in roads, tree trunks and small architectural details such as corrugated iron sheds and power lines.
A sense of space and place is documented by Palmer again and again. There is a steely strength to his wistful cartography of absence and presence. Here the skies bear witness to dismembered structures, lost neighbourhoods and disappeared terrains are made visible once more, carefully conjured up in paint and prints. Imagined prospects and fictional vistas mix with historic suburbs, vanished countrysides and true topography, creating distinctive, melancholic and irresistable images.
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Stanley Palmer (b. 1936) has been exhibiting since 1958 and has worked as a full-time artist since 1969. Palmer currently lives and works in Mt Eden, Auckland. Recent solo exhibitions include: Rags and Shreds (Melanie Roger Gallery, 2012), If I am Remembering Anything (Melanie Roger Gallery, 2011), Recent Work (Anna Bibby Gallery, 2010) and Eastern Approaches Revisited (Anna Bibby Gallery, 2009). Palmer has exhibited extensively in both Australia and New Zealand and his work has been seen as far afield as Tokyo, Venice and Ljubljana, India. Palmer has received much recognition for his work with works held in private and public collections throughout New Zealand including: The University of Auckland, Auckland Art Gallery, Te Papa Tongrewa, and the Christchurch Art Gallery. Additionally Palmer has authored publications such as To the Harbour (2007) and is featured in the major monographs West (2000) and East (2009) with an accompanying text by Gregory O’Brien.
Stanley Palmer will exhibit new work as a solo exhibition in October 2023.
For additional information and a complete CV please contact the gallery.
[1]Stanley Palmer ”I am interested in a lot of things at the end where the road peters out, the edge between the civilised and where we have no control… the oceans and the sky.”
Selected Media.
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STANLEY PALMER INTERVIEW
The Good Oil podcast
2023 -
Stanley Palmer interview
The Big Idea
2018 -
STANLEY PALMER:: FOREIGN SHORES
Gregory O'Brien, Your Friend the Enemy exhibition catalogue
2015 -
SHALL BE MY BROTHER: GALLIPOLI REMEMBERED
video
2015 -
THE RUB OF PLACE AND CONNECTIONS: STANLEY PALMERS PRINTS 1960 - 1980
Dr Anne Kirker, Imprint
2012 -
STANLEY PALMER INTERVIEW
interviewed by Reimke Ensing, Cultural Icons
2010 -
STANLEY PALMER: SIGNS OF LIVING
Gregory O'Brien, Lands and Deeds, Godwit
1996
Exhibitions.
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New work
29th Jan – 22nd Feb 2025 -
Chart of Aotearoa V
25th Oct – 18th Nov 2023 -
Chart of Aotearoa IV
6th Apr – 7th May 2022 -
Chart of Aotearoa III
23rd Feb – 20th Mar 2021 -
Chart of Aotearoa : Part II
18th Sep – 12th Oct 2019 -
Summer
5th Dec – 22nd Feb 2019 -
Chart of Aotearoa
26th Apr – 19th May 2018 -
Summer
6th Dec – 22nd Dec 2017 -
Printmaking
11th Oct – 14th Oct 2017 -
Chart of the Far North
19th Oct – 12th Nov 2016 -
Auckland Art Fair | Booth B1
25th May – 29th May 2016 -
Summer
24th Nov – 19th Dec 2015 -
Gallipoli
18th Nov – 21st Nov 2015 -
Return - Otago Peninsula
3rd Jun – 27th Jun 2015 -
Stanley Palmer | Layla Walter
25th Sep – 19th Oct 2013 -
Rags and Shreds
5th Sep – 29th Sep 2012
News.
- STANLEY PALMER | The Good Oil podcast
- Studio Visit: Stanley Palmer
- Stockroom at Sapphire | Part of Artweek Auckland
- Artweek Auckland at Melanie Roger Gallery
- Public Programmes | Stanley Palmer Talk
- Artweek 2017 | Richard Orjis & Stanley Palmer | Public Pogrammes
- Public Programmes | Stanley Palmer Artist Talk
- STANLEY PALMER | Shall be my Brother: Gallipoli Remembered | Millenium Art Gallery
- Public Programmes | STANLEY PALMER Artist Talk
- STANLEY PALMER | Art New Zealand Magazine
- Public Programmes | Stanley Palmer artist talk
- STANLEY PALMER | Your Friend the Enemy | ANZAC touring exhibition
- ART NEW ZEALAND Magazine texts
- Stanley Palmer | Artists to Gallipoli