Duncan Palmer

Duncan Palmar was born and educated in Hampshire and now lives in Surrey. He started painting professionally in 1983 at the age of 19 and had his first major exhibition that same year.

Soon after this he gave up painting to study architecture in London, but eventually returned to pursue his career as an artist. He has achieved sell out exhibitions since then including shared exhibitions with members of the Royal Watercolour Society. For several years he has been the commissioned artist of the Automobile Association, painting their award winning hotels.

Duncan concentrates primarily on architectural, landscape, seascape, harbour and beach scenes all of which he enjoys painting very much. He paints in both oil and watercolour and tends to apply similar techniques to both mediums, but at the same time tries to retain the individual charm that each medium incorporates.

Most of Duncan’s paintings are on either canvas or paper. But from a desire to try a new surface and medium he began to work in acrylic on gesso boards with tinted grounds. The rapid drying qualities of the paint forced him to work very vigorously giving the painting a looser and more lively appearance. For someone who had, up until that point only painted in a detailed way, he found it a very liberating and satisfying feeling, a real breath of fresh air, ideally suited to capturing a beach with the movement of sea in its diverse moods, rhythms and space.

Duncan now works with oil in the same fashion, and has begun to not only produce beach scenes, but also harbours, estuaries and landscapes.