Press Release

Continually printing, rephotographing, and modifying; Sarah Palmer lays images together. She collects vernacular nudes, portraits and catalog images; both found and realized in the studio. 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 final photographs a deceptive depth – they are flat yet appear to rise from the 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, her works’ presentation employs layering. With printed wallpaper and habotai silks, large dye-sublimation prints on aluminum – sharp and focused – float amidst the delicate fabric, creating another overlay of abstraction and expanse.

Palmer’s work resists the purported truthfulness and grounded representationalism inherent in photography, while remaining rooted in the lens, camera, history and varied modes of the photographic process. For her presentation at the Future Fair Holiday Market, Palmer has created a new series of small works, with a limited edition of dye sublimation prints on aluminum.

Sarah Palmer was born in San Francisco, CA and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA from Vassar College, and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Palmer was awarded the 2011 Aperture Portfolio Prize and has had solo exhibitions at Wild Project, Aperture, New York, and Mrs., Maspeth, NY. Her work has been exhibited at Monti8, Italy; the Foam_fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; the Lishui Photography Festival, China; SPRING/BREAK Art Show, NY; and NADA Miami, FL.