Ann Palmer

Ann Palmer was born in Somerset in the West of England, studied Medicine in Edinburgh and spent 40 years working as a doctor for Public Health. Ann lives in Rochester, Kent, UK; she began drawing and painting in 2007 and is largely self-taught, learning her skills from lectures, courses, and well-known artists.
Ann works in oils using brushes and palette knives often producing very textural work. She looks to the coasts of Kent and Cornwall for inspiration, often painting standing in the pebbly beach watching the tide and its ebbs, the morning mist across the water, the light in the horizon, the clouds coming in from the west towards London, and the light in the open sea in the north and east direction. The low tide reveals the sandbars, the pebbles, the seafood that the seagulls go for. Recently Ann's work has become larger, more abstract and expressionistic.
Ann works from home constructing her own canvases using a high-quality frame and thick cotton canvases on which she lays a coat of acrylic gesso and a bright red before applying several coats of art-quality oil paint, initially using a brush and then adding texture with a palette knife.
The scene is inspired by visits to the coasts, sketches made while standing on the shores, painted en plein air, photographing and absorbing the sights and sounds of the movements of water and skies. The paintings are completed in the studio; the extent to which the painting is constructed with more material depends on the theme and mood. Ann's style is impressionistic, with typical tendencies toward abstractionism and expressionism. Ann is a permanent member of Nucleus Arts in Rochester and exhibits locally in galleries and Art Fairs in London and Southeast England, and in galleries in the U.S., Italy, and Portugal