In conversation with Katrina Palmer

“I often work with challenging contexts and I think about various states of pressure, tension or excitement that’s a response to these conditions.”

 - Katrina Palmer

Katrina Palmer in the National Gallery, 2023 © The National Gallery, London. 

Katrina Palmer, an artist known for exploring materiality, absence, and dislocation, recently spoke to us following her year-long residency at the National Gallery about her exhibition The Touch Report. In our conversation, Palmer shared insights into her project, which invited visitors to engage with a book examining the violent imagery and fragile materiality of historical paintings in the National Gallery’s collection. Set in a specially constructed reading room, the exhibition offered a unique way to reconsider the collection.

Can you tell us about your journey as an artist and how your practice has evolved over the years?

My journey to this point was far from direct. I did a first degree in Philosophy and English Literature. Then I spent 10 years working for Penguin Books in their Production department. That entire time I took evening classes in art and that was where my attention was really focused. Eventually I applied to Central Saint Martins. I got in and I’ve worked as an artist ever since. 

Your projects have spanned various locations, from island quarries to offices and prisons. How do these diverse environments influence your approach to creating art?

I often work with challenging contexts and I think about various states of pressure, tension or excitement that’s a response to these conditions. People in my work (whether that’s the audience or characters) are usually marginalised, standing on the coastline of an island,  on the edge of a platform, or on a narrow path, beside a hole, on the verge of disappearing - basically they’re sensing mortality. I pay close attention to walls and other structural constraints. I’m drawn to physical tension.

The Touch Report at the National Gallery. © National Gallery.

In The Touch Report, which is currently on show at the National Gallery, you address the gallery's record of incidents where works are touched by the public. What inspired you to engage with this particular aspect of the gallery's collection?

I saw various forms of ‘touch' across the Gallery. From the very start I was struck by the sheer volume of images of hand to hand violence, aggression and degrading treatment of women depicted in many artworks on display. There are endless bodies in peril. Simultaneously I saw the fragility of the painted surfaces and witnessed at close proximity the professional teams on site who work tirelessly to preserve the paintings, re-touching and protecting them from damage caused by age, vibrations, deliberate impacts, dust, light, pollution and so on. I realised that the turbulence portrayed is analogous to the material state of the paintings. The more time I spent there the clearer it was that the ideological and cultural power of the historical collection depends to some extent on the appearance of permanence and stability but it’s a precarious facade. Curiously, as well as this, there’s also an evident emotional impact that is the effect of being touched by the content of some of the works - in my case I found several paintings, like Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne completely compelling, full of sensational drama and horror, sexual action and death - it's terrible and brilliantly challenging precisely because it made me realise how complicated my relationship is to the collection and that's definitely not a clear-eyed distanced rejection. I was caught up in its dynamics.

The Touch Report, departs from the traditional gallery format by featuring your book and sculptures instead of traditional artworks. What do you hope visitors will take away from this shift in presentation and how they engage with the gallery's collection?

I hope they take away a copy of my book The Touch Report. In it, I  ask how western civilisation maintains an aura of refined superiority when its cultural treasures are saturated with images of torture, decapitations and gender-based oppression. I’m not suggesting that other civilisations are any better, just that the West is in no way superior but much of the audience seemingly wanders through the galleries oblivious to the violences. I hope that people can start to consider how this happens. Why is it easy to look at crucifixions when they are in fact a scene of torture, and why is it okay to enjoy depiction of a woman being defiled? It’s not just about over-familiarity and the aesthetics, skill and gold leaf etc. of the painting itself that distracts. Among other mechanisms that de-sensitise viewers, there is language and a kind of cultural conditioning that occurs. An entire lexicon of religious terms and mythology distances us from the brute reality of the aggression and instead we’re immersed in a realm of fantasy, religion and myths. These are the structures that I hope to become more conscious of. 

Can you share any upcoming projects or exhibitions you're working on that you're particularly excited about?

I’m currently full time teaching again. At some point I’m heading up to Touchstones in Rochdale to explore their amazing archive and see what I come up with there.

‘The Touch Report’ by Katrina Palmer (pictured below) is available for purchase at the National Gallery shop, while stocks last.

The Touch Report by Katrina Palmer. © National Gallery.

The [Quick] #FLODown:

Best life advice? 

Remember that you only have one.

Last song you listened to? 

 All of My Friends are Going to Hell by Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter.

Last book you read? 

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk.

Can't live without. .. ?

Love and Guinness.

What should the art world be more of and less of? 

 I’m not so sure that an entity called 'the art world' really exists.

Website: katrinapalmerartist.com

lnstagram: @katrina_palmer_a