Ruby Palmer was born in Boston, MA and grew up in rural Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Her work includes work on paper, painting, sculpture, installation, and wood constructions.
She received a BA in Painting and Drawing at Hampshire College (1988-92). She started experimenting with sculpture and installation at the School of Visual Arts in NYC (MFA 1998-2000) as a way to work directly with the architecture of the room. In 1999 she was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors.
Ruby has exhibited work with Morgan Lehman Gallery in 2004, 2014, 2021, and 2023. In addition, she has shown with Turley Gallery in Hudson, NY, at the Albany International Airport, Opalka Gallery, Woodstock Byrdcliff Guild, LABspace, The Foundation Gallery at Columbia-Greene Community College, Jeff Bailey Gallery, the Samuel Dorsky Museum, Page Bond Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Smack Mellon, and Exit Art, among others.
Her work is in many private collections as well as the corporate collections of Fidelity Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Capital Group.
Ruby was recently interviewed by Art Spiel, and her work has been discussed in reviews by The Albany Times Union, Daily Gazette, Roll Magazine, and ArtForum. One of her site-specific installations was featured in the NY Times.
Ruby has lived in Rhinecliff, NY since 2011 with her husband and twin daughters.
Artist Statement:
That which is most often overlooked, draws me in. Asymmetrical symmetries, shifting planes, wonky grids, interrupted patterns, and intersecting lines provide a base structure for my observations of daily life: domestic chores, walking the dog, driving here and there.
My paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and temporary installations combine architectural and geometric structure with whimsical, decorative imagery. The work that emerges is a riff on form: wood floors, quilts, vessels, branches, leaves, kitchen utensils, flowers, fabric remnants, and sections of houses.
I work quickly and follow the impulse or thread from one project to another in order to be free of self judgement and doubt. Each mode informs the others, and there is no hierarchy. I delve into whichever medium feels the most alive and vibrant at the moment. In this busy, liberated state, I find calm engagement to immerse myself in hidden worlds and imagined spaces.