Ruby Palmer

Ruby Palmer was born in Boston in 1969 and spent the majority of her childhood in rural Pennsylvania. She received her BA in Painting and Drawing from Hampshire College in 1992. After a few years roaming the western states, she landed in Brooklyn in 1995. In 2000 she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Ruby currently lives and works in Rhinecliff, New York.

The “animal paintings” began as a way to lighten the mood in my studio as I was making abstract paintings and constructions, which were taking on a more serious and cautionary sense of play.  I remember sitting at my desk, picking up a paintbrush and a little dark watercolor, and scribbling out a very small poodle. It had a curious expressive body and tilt to the head. The drawing would often get buried under other things, only to be recovered again each time I cleared off the surface of the desk.  I didn’t think much of it, but I liked having it around.  It seemed to help regain some freshness in the other work.  I started noticing more and more little dogs on the street, as the city-wide trend caught on.  They always seemed so comical to me.  Cute, sometimes ridiculous, and always very vulnerable to the elements.

At some point, more creatures began to emerge in my work.  It wasn’t always obvious what exactly they were-part dog, part horse. Part bunny, part bear. Sometimes I’d have a vine-like drawing and it seemed to be missing something, so I’d add a little red bird on a perch dangling from one of the stems.  Or I might paint some stage curtains and center a bunny with pearls on a stool right in the middle.  Bears lined up awkwardly for a portrait. I started to see a whole world opening up in front of me that felt more direct, more overt, and a risk expressively.  I still make my abstract paintings and constructions, and the two bodies of work play off each other.

Once I became a mother, this work really took flight.  The environment containing the “subject”/animal, became more and more specific.  A sense of isolation, but also of survival, has become a recurring theme.  Nature in unexpected places.  Animals on stages doing strange performances. Bunnies reproducing, but on lonely floating planks.  The vulnerable qualities of animals appeal to me.

I’ve been looking at folk art.  I appreciate what happens when there’s a vision and limited skills.  An awkwardness of spacial relationships always catches my eye. Often things are still obscure and roughly articulated and very imaginative.

The latest work has the added element of collage.  This is a pleasingly fluid way of working that frees me up to play and rearrange before I settle on the final composition.  The collage element also adds a very slight dimensional feel to the picture, and I hope some ambiguity as to how the painting is made.

• Ruby Palmer, Christian Haub & Robin Braun

  May 15, 2015 — June 12, 2015

• GOOD WILL

  DECEMBER 7, 2023 - JANUARY 22, 2024