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.The window has returned to my paintings after a long furlough. Now it is in the form of a frame or a mat which may also be read as an opening in a wall. Recently, I have been using metal leaf around the edges which creates a kind of frame while remaining an integral formal element of the painting.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. “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". 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 2024 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2021 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2016 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2013 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2011 Graficas Gallery, Nantucket MA2010 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2009 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT2008 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CTFour Starr Gallery, Stonington CT2007 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY2005 Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT2004 Segalas Gallery, Bernardsville NJ2003, 04 Bachelier-Cardonsky, Gallery Kent CT2000, 01, 03 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY1999 Barbara Singer Fine Art, Cambridge MA1999, 98 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY1997 The Main Street Gallery, Nantucket MA1996 Randall Tuttle Fine Arts, Woodbury CT1995 James Cox Gallery, Woodstock NY1992, 90, 88, 87 Sherry French Gallery, New York NY1985, 84, 83 The Main Street Gallery, Nantucket MA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2005 “Pulp”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY“Landscapes”, Haddad-Lascano, Great Barrington, MA2004 "On Paper", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY"Landscapes", Haddad-Lascano Gallery, Great Barrington MA2003 "Hudson River Art at Rhinebeck" Historic Wilderstein Mansion,RhinebeckNY2002 "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 NY2001 "Juried Show", Columbia County Council on the Arts, Hudson NY"Landscapes", The Gallery at R&F, Kingston NY2000 "Dealer's Choice", Bridgewater/Lustberg&Blumenfeld, New York NY1999 "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 MA1997 "Landscapes", Columbia Memorial Gallery, Hudson NY1996 "Inaugural", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY1995 "Group Show", Gwenda Jay Gallery, Chicago IL"Four Painters", Gallery of Contemporary Art, Hudson NY"Invitationl", Tivoli Artists' Co-op, Tivoli NY1994 "Winter Group Show", James Cox Gallery, Woodstock NY1993 "Landscapes", Warren Street Gallery, Hudson NY1992-93 "The New Whitney Dissenters", Sherry French Gallery, New York NY.Traveled to museums in AK, IL and MA1991 "Group Show", Gwenda Jay Gallery, Chicago IL1990-92 "Illumination and Radiance: Epiphanies in Contemporary Painting", Sherry French Gallery, New York NY. Traveled to museums in MI, OK, CA, TX and WA1990 Chicago International Art Exposition, Navy Pier, Chicago IL1988 "An Evening and a Day with Contemporary Art", The Bayly Art Museum, Charlottesville VAChicago Internationl Art Exposition, Navy Pier, Chicago IL"Focus on Art: 1988", NCJW of Essex County, NJ"The Collectors' Show", Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock AK1987-89 "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 UT1987 "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 NY1986 "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 NJ1984 "Selections from The Sara Roby Foundation Collection”, Nantucket Historical Society, Nantucket MA1983 "Annual Juried Show", Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA Award:1995 MacDowell Colony, Peterborough NH, Residency Fellowship SELECTED PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONSNational Museum of American Art, Washington DCSprint Corporation, Kansas City MOUS State DepartmentBank of New YorkHallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City MOThe New School for Social Research, New York NYThe Gund Collection, Cambridge MAAmerican Bank and Trust Co., Chattanooga TNErnst and Whinney, New York NYDutchess Community College Library, Poughkeepsie NY