Teresa Palmer review--the windy version

As MFA students, we ferret and forage. Tromping in great clusters through gallery and museum alike, we hungrily search for meaning, beauty and sublime transcendence, damn it! In this way, it is easy to overlook the richness to be had on our own front porch; we are so fervent in our exploration. Quietly hanging on the north wall of Rosenwald-Wolf, a mysteriously untitled painting awaits its much-deserved glory. It shall wait no more.

The title card simply reads “Teresa Palmer, Third Year.” This nameless painting is just one part of This is Complicated, a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants curatorial endeavor at the University of the Arts. Purportedly, pieces were chosen on a Wednesday, installed on a Thursday, and surrounded by wine, cheese and judgment on a Friday.

For all its spontaneity, the show has served one important purpose: to bring graduate art out of the private quarters of the artists’ studio into the world, prime for public consumption. And consume I have. Palmer’s surfaces are luxuriant; they drip with sumptuous glazes and pigments. Her handle on color is breathtaking, whispers of orange interplay with great swathes of viridian. Not a single pigment has been muddied in Palmer’s practice; her grays are the product of careful consideration. Though Nameless* could exist as a purely formal feast for the color hungry eye, there is much more to the work than simple ocular penny-candy.

Within Nameless’ borders, a strange present has been created. Palmer’s painted world breathes. Though her chosen pockets of definition are still somewhat ambiguous, color generates a potent tenor. The sky feels threatening; dark trees are silhouetted against its tranquil purplish-menace. Two female figures exist in the foreground, positioned in front of a greenish architectural space. The space is open and well lit. The angling of the structure is almost reminiscent of Hopper’s Nighthawks’, though the tenor is quite disparate.

The figure on the left (LF) stands, while the figure on the right (RF) appears to be seated. LF’s face is a space of modulating, flat warm grays. On the right edge of this facial field lay a few careful swathes of brownish pink. Palmer’s delicacy has allowed these marks to exist both as “face” and “mark”, representation and abstraction. The woman stands with weight but is also somewhat form-less. Her knee is a burst of orange red that almost fades into a warm gray field making up the floor.

While LF is turned at a sort of three-quarter profile (she looks out toward the right), RF looks outward and down. Her body is curled and turned toward the second figure. RF’s pallor is composed of pinks and purples rather than the warm grays and oranges of her counterpart. One of her arms is bent out and around, as if she is holding something; a swirl of brown is met by chunks of pink and white. Her face is somewhat more defined but her eyes are warm, dark holes. The little definition Palmer has included creates an air of uncertainty and pain about RF.

After a long close inspection, Nameless feels both definite and dubious. Forms are found through scrapes and drags; from chaos this semi-serene nocturnal-space finds structure. A strange and ambiguous narrative exists somewhere between Nameless’ borders. Palmer’s pockets of definition seem purposeful, but by no means controlling, points of departure. The power of interpretation seems to have been firmly bestowed upon the viewer. LF stands as if attention, ready for orders while RF shrinks and shrugs into a loose ball. She too acts as a receptacle for meaning.

At first visual stab, the full weight of this dominion feels slightly uncomfortable. Confusion is not a fair exchange for pedantry. However, after all intellectual performance anxieties have calmly subsided, Nameless is given a chance to fully appear. This manifestation of meaning is in no way static. Just as you feel as though you have a handle on the piece, something changes and falls away. RF and LF are fleshy ghosts; they are both inhabitants of space and wandering wraiths without residence. There is very little interpersonal or environmental communication. Though RF sits, her interaction with the entire space is minimal. What is created is potent atmosphere of isolation and physical alienation, not unfamiliar terrain in this digitized age of mechanization.

Where does Palmer stand in this psycho-emotional haze? Perhaps Palmer is commenting on the weakness oft assigned the female sex. One could draw meaning from the neutrality of LF’s color structure played against RF’s more traditionally feminine coloration. She, the more feminine female figure, seems feeble compared to the strength of LF’s stance. LF’s hair is back while RF’s hangs down about her bare shoulders. Cultural mores and rules regarding femininity frequently involve hair. The figures exist in a seemingly domestic space. Domestic space, in turn, reads as feminine space, though the sharp angularity of the structure could be construed as strictly masculine according to a system of stereotypical gender binaries.

These inferences of signification, while interesting, do not come any closer to an effective solidification of Nameless’ contents and meaning. In this case especially, a concerted effort to substantiate intentionality would be an exercise in self-limitation. To simply dissect and classify Nameless’ more definite parts is not the best way to get at this work’s meaning, as there are many meanings and experiences to be plumbed from Palmer’s painterly depths. Nameless’ refusal to be pinned down, between materiality and meaning, specificity and ambiguity, makes for a rich viewing experience, one that demands re-visitation.

And that’s a good thing.

***Go, see the painting and if you still don’t agree—I’ll eat my hat. Tell ‘em Jessie sent you***