In 2009, Palmer attracted major coverage for her work Ghost Forest, installed at Trafalgar Square in London. For her installation, Palmer sourced 10 stumps of commercially logged virgin forest from Ghana – an arresting visual statement on the impact of deforestation. In 2010, the work travelled to Copenhagen during the World Climate Change Summit, after which Ghost Forest was installed at the Oxford Museum of Natural History before finding its permanent home at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
In 2015, Palmer was allowed unprecedented access to create a body of work responding to Formula 1, culminating in her exhibition at The Fine Art Society, Adrenalin. In collaboration with Renault Sport F1, Palmer deconstructed the RS27 engine to interrogate the intricacies of what exactly made the RS27 the most successful engine in the sport. A selection of her Formula 1 work was featured at the Guggenheim, Bilbao, as part of the 2022 exhibition Motion. Autos, Art, Architecture.
In 2020, Palmer produced a sculpture capturing the Coronavirus particle, on a scale of eight million times its actual size. Attracting coverage by BBC news, the work was unveiled by Professor Sarah Gilbert, pioneer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine, at the Oxford Museum of Natural History. The first in the edition was purchased by The Science Museum in London and took pride of place in the museums two year touring exhibition Injecting Hope: The race for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Palmer has also turned her gaze upon herself, producing multiple self portraits with the aid of MRI imaging at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, University College Hospital London and Aberdeen University. It was this body of work that appealed to novelist Robert Harris, who reached out to Palmer to feature her works in his 2011 novel The Fear Index. Palmer's work also features in the 2022 adaptation of the novel of the same name.
Angela Palmer (b.1957) started her career as a journalist, first working as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph in 1982 and later becoming News Editor at The Observer (1986-1988). Palmer progressed to become Editor of The Observer Magazine (1989-1992) before moving to Elle Magazine as Editor-in-Chief (1992-1993). In 2002, Palmer studied Fine Art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford where she received the Fitzgerald Prize for her work, before continuing her studies with a Masters degree at the Royal College of Art.
Palmer’s work tackles complex contemporary issues, and her interest in mapping drives her to communicate these issues in powerful yet beautifully crafted works. Palmer’s work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, the National Botanic Garden of Wales, and the Science Museum, London.
Pangolin London is proud to represent Angela Palmer.