Verve Magazine, 4th April 2016

Article and gallery – here.

Central Leader, 15th October 2015

Mt Eden painter utilises ancient art technique – read the article here.

What’s In The Galleries?

Silver Linings, NKB Gallery, Mt Eden 24/10/13 – 12/11/13

NKBB

New Zealand’s definitive design destination…

See ‘Pinball’ in situ here.

Neal Palmer’s quadtych painting Hide and Seek hangs above the dining table.

NZ House & Garden – Island Time.

“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)

Read the full review online.

“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

Download pdf [1.5mb]

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.

Read Claire McCall’s interview with Neal Palmer.

Artist Tony Ogle’s house features a Neal Palmer hibiscus painting.

Ogle has a storage unit full of art, and rotates the works on display to keep them fresh. “I can get a bit complacent about the works.”  The Neal Palmer hisbiscus, however, suits the room so well he never moves it.

“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.”

T.J. McNamara, nzherald.co.nz

Download the pdf.

“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)

Read the article online.