"Work 16 'Compromising Purpose'" Painting

Zoe Palmer is a multidisciplinary artist based in London, working across painting and text. Her practice centres on emotionally charged abstraction, where raw mark-making and fragmented language collide. Her work is driven by instinct rather than control—valuing immediacy, imperfection, and emotional honesty. Surfaces are built up and broken down, written over, scraped back, and reworked—each piece holding traces of what came before. Through this process, Palmer explores memory, identity, and the unstable terrain of feeling. Influenced by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tracey Emin, Gerhard Richter, and Kazuo Shiraga, she approaches the canvas as a site of emotional evidence—restless, unresolved, and deeply human. Her work draws on unconscious impulses, confessional text, and naïve, expressive forms. Rather than seeking resolution, Palmer’s work stays open. It resists polish in favour of presence—each piece existing as both a record and a release—something felt, then left behind. Palmer holds a degree in Digital Arts and has sold original works through international platforms.