Press Release

Mrs. is proud to share a solo presentation of new works by Sarah Palmer, for NADA Miami, 2019. 

Continually printing, rephotographing, and modifying, Palmer lays images together.  Some found, some realized, she collects vernacular nudes, portraits and catalog images.  Holes are cut into prints, allowing some pictures to become apertures while others recede into the assemblage.  Using gridded strobes, color gels, or handmade cucoloris shapes she creates areas of color and deep shadow, which give the photographs a deceptive depth – they are flat yet appear to rise from the paper’s substrate. 

Feminine bodies are chaotically juxtaposed with textures of rugs, baroque beds, and heavy drapery, in often surreal and reimagined contexts.  Considering the poetry of H.D. and Emily Dickinson, the “textual” space created between these images act like language, creating veins of communication and conversation.   A dance of flatness and depth flows through this arrangement, as dimensionality expands and contracts back into a tight picture plane. Mimicking Palmer’s studio practice, this presentation will employ layering.  With printed wallpaper and habotai silks, large dye-sublimation prints on aluminum - sharp and focused - float amidst the delicate fabric, creating another overly of abstraction and expanse.  

Palmer’s work resists the inherent truthfulness and grounded representationality of photography while remaining rooted in the lens, camera, process, and photography’s history and varied modes. 

Sarah Palmer was born in San Francisco and lives in Brooklyn. She received her BA from Vassar College, and her MFA at School of Visual Arts. She was awarded the 2011 Aperture Portfolio Prize and has had solo exhibitions at Wild Project and at Aperture, NY. Her work has been exhibited at the Foam_fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, the Lishui Photography Festival, China, and SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NY. Palmer will have a concurrent solo exhibition with Mrs. during the time of NADA Miami.