We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gabriel Palma a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gabriel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?
This is a fascinating question as I have been recently exploring this topic and coming to terms with my reasons for making the decisions I made. I think I will always feign on the side of saying that I wish I started my career earlier, simply because I have always regarded myself as a late bloomer in alot of respects. I have always been a little slow out the starting gate, but when I get moving, I tend to move at a speed that catches me up and beyond. I will say I began my career at 23 years old, but in many ways I feel like I just started. When I was 23, I emphatically decided that I was going to be a painter. At the time, my fathers health was declining, so many of the decisions as to how I was going to pursue my art cycled around that situation. I received grants and scholarships to attend various art schools, but I remember turning them down just because I didn’t want to leave my mother to deal with everything that was happening. So I made it work. The good thing about that was I did not put myself into any kind of student debt, and also it allowed me to study with who I wanted to study with and also, at my own pace. The downside was I have always felt a little on the outside of the artworld, as institutions have various benefits to connecting you with opportunities and people. The only thing I can think that would be different is I think simply, I would be possibly more immersed in my practice. At the moment, I do so many different things just to make ends meet that I feel like when I get a week to paint, I feel lucky. I would love to be at a point where all I have to focus on work wise is painting. But not only that, to develop my practice even further and deeper. Sometimes when I get so busy, I return to unfinished paintings and it feels like I am returning to conversations that are not as relevant to me anymore.
But I can’t really say that I would’ve wished it differently, because things were the way they were and I made the best decision that I could at the time. And maybe what I “wish” could’ve happened, wouldn’t have been right for me anyways. I also think that my receptivity and willingness to commit to what I am doing now is greater than it has ever been. At this moment in time, I am at a point where my receptivity is the most vast, to where I can pick and choose what I want to do and how I want to do it for my practice, so in some ways I believe that things happened exactly the way they were supposed to.
Gabriel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Gabriel Palma and I was born in Los Angeles, California. I was born to a Croatian mother and an Italian father who was also a World War II veteran. As a young child, I was exposed to many works of art, roaming the rooms of The Getty, LACMA, and the Norton Simon. I began drawing at an early age but did not pick up a paint brush until I was 18. I spent my days reading books about painting and teaching myself in my garage at home. I would sit there for hours, exploring ideas, trying pigments, creating worlds for myself to get lost into. It wasn’t until I met artist Csaba Markus when I was 23, where in which he told me I had the potential to turn my painting into a lifestyle. Since then, it hasn’t been a linear path. I started small, taking commissions for family and friends. I didn’t start dipping my toe into exhibiting until a couple years later. I mainly do watercolor/ oil/ mixed media type finished works in various forms of privately selling to clients to doing commission works. My work is so directly influenced by my immediate surroundings, be it the colors and the subject matter. But I do posses a rare skill where I can paint in many different styles, and I do that for clients. Depending on what kind of commission they are looking for, I can usually cater to their desires. I am really proud of my unique touch to how I paint and how I use color. I didn’t go to art school, so my understanding of composition and color isn’t conventional, and I employ it in a very unique manner. And I am also not afraid of that, I try not to get stuck in thinking that I need to “refine” anything or be anything. I sit comfortably in my unique language as a painter and that’s why I think I get people to follow what I do.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
At some point, I was convinced that there was a “right” way to do things. There was a right way to paint, a right way to apply color, a right way to compose, a right way to draw, the right subject matter to choose from when beginning a painting. I discovered in my mid 30’s that that could not be further from the truth. You cannot operate out of a place of fear of being “right” or “wrong”. Granted, you need to understand your craft to the point where you know how it works, meaning the basic mechanics of it. But it comes to the choices you make as an artist; “Do I choose this color or that color”, “Do I paint this subject or that subject” ect, those are questions you can’t have your inner critic running. Doing this will stifle you beyond belief. Not only will it stifle you, but it will also prevent you from making work that is real and organic, thus not enabling you to connect with the viewers, the ones who are choosing to engage with your work. The more you can operate out of place of “you know, I don’t know why I am gonna do this, but it just feels right” type of choice making, the deeper you will connect with people who want to engage with you and your work.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
When I was in my late twenties, I was doing a full time study at a local art academy. During this time I started having some health issues that were making it hard for me to commit to the full time study. I had always wanted to try acting, so I felt like this was a good time to take a step back from painting and try my hand at it. I signed up for an acting class in Hollywood. It was there that I met some of the most influential artists that totally shaped my views on art and my own practice. It was unexpected because I never knew that acting would effect my painting so much, but alot of the concepts that I was learning in an acting class transferred directly over to painting. Now I have my art practice but I am also a TV/Film/Theater actor and have embraced the fact that both practices feed into one another.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gabrielantoniopalma.com/
- Instagram: @gabrielantoniopalmaa
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005664917026
Image Credits
Merryl Simon