Leigh Palmer
My paintings are based on observation of the landscape in the Hudson River Valley where I live, and are improvised in the studio; the images are found or discovered in my memory of familiar places and developed during the painting process. Human beings do not appear, but their presence is felt in the marks left on the ground (furrows, fence rows, roads), and sometimes in the air (smoke, haze).
The Hudson River School weighs heavily on the landscape painter here, and the influence must be grappled with. I cautiously take energy from the tradition, but I choose humble locations and treat them more introspectively than most of those 19th century painters did.
I use beeswax (encaustic) paint because, in its unruliness, it encourages the accidental. It is almost impossible for me to use it to render, and I get an expressive, rough, sometimes dream-like product: I surprise myself. The surface can be scraped and sculpted, worked as one might work the ground with a hoe or rake.
Encaustics 
Encaustic works are created with melted beeswax mixed with dried pigment or oil paint. This is an ancient process which has become quite popular in recent years.
Openings
Landscapes
Works on Paper
Installations
Sold
Other Works 
Resume
“Leigh Palmer spent most of his early painting life working in oils”, writes Randi Hoffman of American Artist. He depicted serene interiors, views through windows, and landscapes in a precise, detailed western"> Around this time, the artist received a set of materials for encaustic painting from a friend and began to experiment with them. Encaustic is a technique of painting with hot wax colors that fuse to a support after they are applied and fixed with heat. “The process suggests a distinct language of marks. It requires a different painting vocabulary,” says Palmer. “And it’s very permanent, which I like. Also, it hardens in about twenty seconds or so, while oils dry slowly and often don’t appear the way they did when you put them on. With encaustic paints, I can see how my work looks immediately.”
About the same time he began using encaustic, Palmer also started to move away from painting from photographs. “I began to work more spontaneously, making the picture up as I went along,” he says. “Instead of a preconceived idea, I allowed my emotions to come into play. I began working from a place where dreams were taking an inventory of what was inside me.” He notes that encaustic became a catalyst for this change. “The medium doesn’t always go the way you want it to; you have to follow it,” says Palmer. “I think encaustic provided me with the ability to have accidental things happen as I went along. I had to give up the control I had with oil paint. I’ve ended up doing more interpretive paintings.”
EXHIBITIONS
2013 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
2011 Graficas Gallery, Nantucket MA
2010 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
2009 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT
2008 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT
Four Starr Gallery, Stonington CT
2007 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
2005 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT
2004 Segalas Gallery, Bernardsville NJ
2003, 04 Bachelier-Cardonsky, Gallery Kent CT
2000, 01, 03 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
1999 Barbara Singer Fine Art, Cambridge MA
1999, 98 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
1997 The Main Street Gallery, Nantucket MA
1996 Randall Tuttle Fine Arts, Woodbury CT
1995 James Cox Gallery, Woodstock NY
1992, 90, 88, 87 Sherry French Gallery, New York NY
1985, 84, 83 The Main Street Gallery, Nantucket MA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2005 “Pulp”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
“Landscapes”, Haddad-Lascano, Great Barrington, MA
2004 "On Paper", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
"Landscapes", Haddad-Lascano Gallery, Great Barrington MA
2003 "Hudson River Art at Rhinebeck" Historic Wilderstein Mansion,RhinebeckNY
2002 "Works on Paper", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
"Hot Wax", Cummings Art Center, Connecticut College, New London, CT
"The Luminous Landscape", Museum of the Hudson Highlands, Cornwall- on-Hudson NY and Albert Shahinian Gallery, Poughkeepsie NY
2001 "Juried Show", Columbia County Council on the Arts, Hudson NY
"Landscapes", The Gallery at R&F, Kingston NY
2000 "Dealer's Choice", Bridgewater/Lustberg&Blumenfeld, New York NY
1999 "Encaustic Works '99", Watermark/Cargo Gallery Kingston NY and The Gallery at R&F, Kingston NY
"Turning of the Century", Bridgewater/Lustberg & Blumenfeld Gallery New York NY
"Locations", Kendall Art and Design, Hudson NY
"Four Old Friends", The New Gallery, Nantucket MA "Summer Group Show", Munson Gallery, Chatham MA
1997 "Landscapes", Columbia Memorial Gallery, Hudson NY
1996 "Inaugural", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY
1995 "Group Show", Gwenda Jay Gallery, Chicago IL
"Four Painters", Gallery of Contemporary Art, Hudson NY
"Invitationl", Tivoli Artists' Co-op, Tivoli NY
1994 "Winter Group Show", James Cox Gallery, Woodstock NY
1993 "Landscapes", Warren Street Gallery, Hudson NY
1992-93 "The New Whitney Dissenters", Sherry French Gallery, New York NY.
Traveled to museums in AK, IL and MA
1991 "Group Show", Gwenda Jay Gallery, Chicago IL
1990-92 "Illumination and Radiance: Epiphanies in Contemporary Painting", Sherry French Gallery, New York NY. Traveled to museums in MI, OK, CA, TX and WA
1990 Chicago International Art Exposition, Navy Pier, Chicago IL
1988 "An Evening and a Day with Contemporary Art", The Bayly Art Museum, Charlottesville VA
Chicago Internationl Art Exposition, Navy Pier, Chicago IL
"Focus on Art: 1988", NCJW of Essex County, NJ
"The Collectors' Show", Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock AK
1987-89 "Frivolity and Mortality: The Tradition of Vanitas in Contemporary Painting", Sherry French Gallery, New York. Traveled to museums in NJ, TN, IN, AZ, CA, NY and UT
1987 "Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection", National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC (catalog illus. page 114)
Basel Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland
"Night Light, Night Life", Sherry French Gallery, New York
"In the Country", Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx NY
1986 "Nature Morte: The Museum Examines Still Life", So. Alleghenies Museum, Loretto PA
"Timeless Tables", Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA
"Still Life: Life That Is Still", Sherry French Gallery, New York
"Group Show", Miller Gallery, Cincinatti OH
"Food Show", Nabisco Brands Gallery, East Hanover NJ
1984 "Selections from The Sara Roby Foundation Collection”, Nantucket Historical Society, Nantucket MA
1983 "Annual Juried Show", Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA
Award:
1995 MacDowell Colony, Peterborough NH, Residency Fellowship
SELECTED PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
National Museum of American Art, Washington DC
Sprint Corporation, Kansas City MO
US State Department
Bank of New York
Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City MO
The New School for Social Research, New York NY
The Gund Collection, Cambridge MA
American Bank and Trust Co., Chattanooga TN
Ernst and Whinney, New York NY
Dutchess Community College Library, Poughkeepsie NY
