Avery Palmer

Avery Palmer is a painter and sculptor from Arcata, California. Inspired most notably by Surrealist painting, his figurative art presents ambiguous allegorical scenarios exploring the complex nature of the human condition, the subconscious, and the interconnectedness of all things.
From a young age, Palmer was driven to express his active imagination through drawings. He earned his BA in Studio Art at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he developed a great passion for- and dedication to drawing. Enabled by his development as a draftsman, he branched out to develop his art in the areas of painting and ceramic sculpture. He also has an MFA from San Jose State University. His work has been exhibited throughout California and in Chicago and Seattle.

Artist’s Statement:
My work seeks to explore the nature of humanity and to express the inherent complexity and mystery of our relationships to the world we live in and to each other. I invent scenarios that can be thought of as puzzles with no right or wrong solutions—puzzles that are analogous to the changing and perpetually unresolved nature of life itself. Inspired by Surrealist painters like Salvador Dali and Remedios Varo, my paintings propose an alternate view of our world in an attempt to link our everyday existence to the magic of the subconscious, the uncertain, and the mysterious. While the dreamlike imagery I am interested in can become abstract and feel removed from our reality, my interests in Rembrandt and Odd Nerdrum inspire in my work a sense of physicality that grounds it, connecting it to our real, tangible experiences. I am interested in expressing our most essential, timeless, human qualities while celebrating the strange, the incomprehensible, and the uncertainty of life.