Michael A. Palmer's one-man exhibition of acrylic and ink paintings on canvas opens next Wednesday, Jan. 10, at Gingerbread Square Gallery with a reception from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The show will continue through Jan. 17.
Palmer has lived and worked in Key West for 13 years. He has exhibited professionally for 37 years and is well collected both here and abroad.
His paintings are in the permanent public collections of the Seattle Museum of Art; the U.S. Embassy, Moscow, Russia; the DeCordova Museum of Art, Lincoln, MA; Colby College, Waterville, ME; University of Georgia, Athens, GA; University of Maine; University of Georgia; Ogunquit Museum of Art; and others.
Private collections that include Mr. Palmer's work include Aetna Insurance Company; Hartford Life; Bill Cosby; the Rockefeller family and Gertrude Mellon.
He is also listed in "Who's Who in Art" and presently exhibits with other galleries in the United States and Canada.
His most recent works have concentrated on African-American figures.
"I find African-American figures exciting from a purely aesthetic point of view," he said. "The lights and darks on the figure are more dramatic and the variation in color has caught my painterly eye."
He says that he approaches each work without a plan, allowing the brush strokes to take their own forms and lead the way— sometimes to representational works, and occasionally to his love of abstractions. He may start a painting with loose strokes of paint with nothing in mind and not until three quarters of the canvas is covered did the strokes burst into bloom.
"That is the excitement of it," he says. "No one knows where it will end up— not even me."
Gingerbread Square Gallery is located at 1207 Duval. The gallery is open daily 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Info: 296-2900.