Sean Palmatier's Profile

From: Salem, MA
Joined: June 28, 2008
www.seanpalmatier.com

About palmatier:

Artist statement: Sean Palmatier

I like the idea of a world that directly responds to thoughts and feelings, that actually changes to fit thoughts and feelings. A world that lends itself entirely to your perspective, that comes to life and expresses who, and what, and where you are at that moment. In a word, dreams.

But what if our dreams didn’t need us?

What would they look like if you took out the personal references like, people you know, or places you’ve been?

What if it were a living place that could only be defined by the perspective of its viewer at that moment?

The environments depicted in my work are the primordial soup of dreams, the raw materials that wait for a psychic catalyst so that they can take shape.

These are some examples of the kinds of ideas that go into and come out of the process of creating these paintings, sometimes I feel as though I’m abstracting from abstraction.

I immensely enjoy the creative process. It’s simultaneously a metaphysical exploration and a learned technical ability, neither of which one can ever completely be finished with.

These works, while very personal in their creation, are not meant to convey my experiences directly to the viewer. They are, rather, starting points from which the viewer has their own experience, whether it be that they add their own narrative, interpret my intentions, or just get lost in the composition. This idea has been with me in every museum in which I’ve ever been. The most profound experiences I’ve had in viewing art myself haven’t been through an understanding of the original historical context of a work, but instead the very immediate personal experience where the art invites me to experience it for myself.

-Sean Palmatier, 2009

(p.s. : these are some of the psychologically based, thematic characters that recur in my work):

KING-
King represents structure, stability, order and strength. He is resolve in the face of adversity. He is reason. King tends to manifest himself in forms that reflect these traits. Solid, three-dimensional geometric forms are his signature.

HAND-
Creation incarnate. Driven to constant movement, light, and playfulness. Hand perpetually tastes life for the first time. He breathes life into the world through color and his sense of humor is seen, for example, in the juxtaposition of flatness of form in deep space.

RAGDOLL-
Ragdoll lives in darkness and noise. He is a sentient defense mechanism, reacting in adrenaline-fueled, snap movements. Ragdoll is chaos, he simply doesn’t know any better.