Elizabeth Palmer-Artists in Action Gallery
Artist Biography:
Since I first fell in love with all things wild when I was a child in coastal Virginia, I have been captivated by the marriage of art and natural science. I have been nature printing in Oregon for about a decade. I enjoy printing a variety of natural subjects from giant kelp and tree rings to octopuses and snakes.
I began college as an art major but finished with a Geology degree. I later earned my Masters in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management from the University of Denver. While working in the environmental field, I also had a photography business and continued to practice my art, take drawing and print making classes and participate in art walks. Natural science and art have been continuously intertwined for me.
I have shown work at the LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University for the Marine Food Webs exhibit and the River Gallery in Independence Oregon as part of the Willamette Wine Tour. I have been a member of the Nature Printing Society for 5 years. I was on the cover of the Nature Printing Society winter 2024 newsletter with a two page feature article on my tree ring printing.
I have been fortunate to network with arborists and foresters in the Willamette Valley to acquire my wood pieces. My fish and octopus specimens have been intercepted on their way to become culinary fare. By using them in my art, I can use them several times and honor them in a different but meaningful way.
Artist Statement:
I print textures from nature with environmental themes. I focus on elements of our landscapes and earth home that are disappearing due to habitat destruction, climate change and pollution. My most recent work highlights the stories found in fire and pest scarred trees. Depending on what I am capturing and what feeling of stillness or motion I want to convey and the tone of the story to be told, I use a variety of materials for my printmaking from silk and sumi ink to water color paper, oil based relief ink and handmade mulberry paper.
Gyotaku was created by Japanese fishermen to record their catch in the 1800s. What better way, slightly ironic perhaps, to record the rapidly vanishing and essential wild around us? There is an elegant simplicity in nature printing that is captivating. Whether it is gyotaku fish printing, botanicals or trees, the art usually evokes a calm, peaceful feeling.
Each tree ring pattern is as unique as our fingerprints are unique to us. I see the rings as a reflection of the transitions we all must go through, retelling a very individual story through time.
My work is aesthetically an exploration of texture but on a deeper level, for me, it’s a spiritual exploration and expression of the simultaneous fragility and resilience of ecosystems and the plant and animal species within. This is also a metaphor for me personally and for the sometimes arduous physical printing process itself. My background in geology, photography, scuba diving, marine conservation, ecosystem restoration and wilderness planning and protection lays the foundation for this textural journey into the essence of life and the things that connect us all.
Other Available images from this artist
