Io Palmer

I use drawing, photography, ceramics, and fabric to produce conceptual objects and mixed-media installations that explore the ephemeral substances of social culture. Headdress, hair and uniform are tropes created to depict the tensions between the domains of the imagination and the public performances of identity.

The physical labor needed to produce my work parallels the energy needed to critique mass cultural forces in order to carve out one's individual identity. My work points to the symbiotic relationship between public society and private identity. Being enveloped within this creative space , viewers are offered the possibilities of considering the symbolism my work evokes and provokes.

My work offers both a thought-space and an open-ended critique meant to propel participants into new forms of imaginative (and literal) space that plays with history, gender, race and expression. These created objects can propel an act, a performance or an expressive movement.