

Valley of history, Artists at Karekare – Art News, Summer 2018
Valley of history, Artists at Karekare – Art News, Summer 2018
Central Leader, 15th October 2015
Mt Eden painter utilises ancient art technique – read the article here.
Eleanor Black visited the studio for a gilding lesson and promo for my upcoming show – Complex Rhythms at nkb Gallery, Mt Eden (October-November 2015)
Article and video here
New Zealand’s definitive design destination…
Neal Palmer’s quadtych painting Hide and Seek hangs above the dining table.
“The floor was a labour of love for me. It’s based on the squares of the tapa cloth, using the geometric shapes to break up the areas. It took two weeks – I used acrylic and hand to paint a layer a day. The whole family was around at the time but eventually they got kicked out while I varnished it. It’s been down seven years so it’s lasting.
It’s a good home for the three children. It was particularly good when they were toddlers – being open plan you could keep tabs on them but as they got older we put some extra doors in to block off the TV area and give them some privacy.
It’s a mixture of our personalities. My work comes and goes as I paint for shows. In the most recent I was interested in the shapes and forms flax create. The Dick Frizzell tiki in the back is a favourite of my wife Ang’s. The coffee table was her idea. She’d been collecting those teacups – they’re all slightly different colours and slightly transparent.”
Photograph: Patrick Reynolds
Interview: Olivia Tully
“There are red, decaying leaves, the spots of insect attack and edge-eating beetles mixed in with vigorous growth. The skill of the painting is undeniable and very attractive but these read less as symbols of mortality and more as an element of realism.” (T.J. McNamara, nzherald.co.nz)
“The breathtaking large paintings of flora create an amazing scale relationship with the viewer. Despite the size of the paintings Palmer still captures the very essence of the subject he decides to paint, through extraordinary focus on detail.”
– Ponsonby News
“The artist thrusts his plants uncompromisingly at us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in one long painting which is a grove of flax, dense enough to hide in with the growth patterns of its leaves making a syncopated rhythm right across.
As well as the rhythm there is the harsh reality of the ravages of insects on the leaves.” (T.J. McNamara)
Artist Neal Palmer has been known to upset the neighbours. In diligent pursuit of his metier, he takes thousands of photographs of plants and flowers. Patrolling the streets of suburbia he’s apt to blur the boundaries should he spot a likely specimen. “Once I got told off when trying to snap a kowhai, but I try to ask permission if I can,” he explains.
“The paintings of Neal Palmer, at the SOCA Gallery in Newton until September 27, are also exceptionally large. The subject, when it is vegetation, is enlarged far beyond its natural size. The results are often vivid and the appropriately titled Flame Thrower is a surge of scarlet flowers spread in great detail across three panels. The painting is given weight by the column of the main stalk of the flax flower and the drooping weight of decaying leaves.” (T.J. McNamara)
– New Zealand Herald
“Precision on a grander scale is apparent in the work of Neal Palmer who is showing at SOCA Gallery in France St, Newton. Individual paintings often consist of panels of aluminium on board. They are held together by a dancing rhythm of intersecting geometric arcs. Behind these are accurately painted pohutukawa and flax. These are exuberant, three times life size, and often startlingly red though with a hint of decay and insect activity. The brushwork emphasises such things as the fibrous nature of flax leaves.
The rhetorical enlargement, geometry and realism celebrate the variety of growth in many forms, from the trumpeting stamen of a big red hibiscus in Feeling Fruity, to the erect thrust of red flax flowers in Big Love.
This accomplished exhibition is called The Sum of Their Parts and surely the total comes to more than their sum.”
Suzie Campbell Snapshot Reality: The Painted World of Neal Palmer
“Making puppets for the famous 90s TV show Spitting Image is about as far as its possible to get from the iconic New Zealand paintings Neal Palmer creates today.” (Estelle Sarney)