FORTHCOMING SOLO EXHIBITION
Four-story, flat-roofed complex in a somewhat Expressionist style
A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam
February 21 – May 17, 2026
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SURVEY PUBLICATION
2024
Katrina Palmer (Want to See Something Real)
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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
The Touch Report (Book)
The Touch Report, National Gallery, London (Exhibition)
Katrina Palmer’s speech at the National Gallery opening 10th December 2024: This year of my residency coincided with racist riots across the country and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And I’ve spent the year looking at the violences in the gallery’s collection. There’s much else here besides that, and I’ve been struck by the sensational qualities of many, really spellbinding works, but I’m also asking how it’s possible that there are quite so many paintings that depict weapons, torture and domination, yet what’s projected somehow is an air of superiority and refinement. In global politics, when there’s so much passivity in the face of the genocidal demographic takeover in Gaza, it seems important to reflect on how the brutal infliction of suffering can be framed in terms of precision, intelligence and skill. I’m conscious of allegory used as a weapon of gendered and class-based oppression and the insidious power of mythology that makes it possible to dream up and instigate violence but to locate it with the exotic – as if it’s something that happens over there. What can appear to be surface imagery has persistent ideological impact, and with so many of these artworks already embedded in my consciousness I’ve been walking through the galleries on my own, drawn into and caught up with the power and drama of the collection. In one of these paintings a finger is pressed into a hole, in the side of a man’s body. He’s doubting and testing what’s real. There’s a hole in the bookcase as you enter the reading room and I was remembering this idea of the wound as a site of enquiry. In these ways the residency has made me think differently. I see the collection as a useful resource because the artworks don’t hide aggressive fantasies, they depict them, vividly, they hold up a mirror in that sense – to who we really are, to who is celebrated and who is not, and to the lack of humanity that people are capable of. In other words, if ever there was a time for institutions to reflect on how violence is inherent to the western civilising project, it is now.
Artist in Residence National Gallery, London 01.01.24 to 31.12.24
Pitch Dark and Live at the National Gallery 17.03.25
Video screening and discussion 14.02.25
Video of Event: Unexpected View, National Gallery, London 26.07.24
Arrhythmia launch Camden Arts Centre 29.08.24
2024 Book Works poster commission:
Landscape by Katrina Palmer is available for £75 + VAT from bookworks.org.uk as part of What did you do… (2024), a poster project commissioned by Book Works. Any proceeds from this project will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
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2023
WHAT’S ALREADY GOING ON
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre
https://contemporary.burlington.org.uk/reviews/reviews/katrina-palmer-whats-already-going-on
2021
HELLO and RETREAT
2018
THE COFFIN JUMP
2018
THE TIME-TRAVELLING CIRCUS
Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
Leeds University, Brotherton Library (permanent installation)
2016
THE THREE STORIES ARE FLATTENED
Void, Derry/Londonderry
2015
END MATTER
https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/end-matter/
2015
THE NECROPOLITAN LINE
https://www.henry-moore.org/whats-on/2015/12/10/katrina-palmer-the-necropolitan-line#
2013
REALITY FLICKERS
https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201403/katrina-palmer-45321
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SELECTED SOLO PUBLICATIONS
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SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 On the other side [group exhibition], FACT, Liverpool
2021 Not Standing in Place, Zurich Spektakal, Switzerland
2021 Black Text (Limited edition poster commission, for ‘On the Western Window Pane’, Van Gogh House, London
2017 Stories In Your Mind, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany
2017 In a dream you saw a way to survive… Hayward Touring, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (version 3 of evolving work)
2017 In a dream you saw a way to survive… Hayward Touring, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (version 2 of evolving work)
2017 The Time-Travelling Circus The Recent Return of Pablo Fanque and the Electrolier Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Brotherton Library, Leeds (on-going intervention)
2016 In a dream you saw a way to survive… Hayward Touring, Whitworth, Manchester (version 1 of evolving work)
2016 Making People Up, Tramway, Glasgow with Lux Scotland
2015 The Weight of Data, Tate Britain, London
2014 MirrorCity, Hayward Gallery, London
2014 Dr Sinclair’s Drawer Flat Time House, London
2014 Did anyone read the book? Whitstable Biennale (solo installation at biennale)
2013 From Morn ‘Til Midnight, Supportico Lopez, Berlin
2013 A Journey Through London Subculture 1980s to Now, ICA Off-Site: The Old Selfridges Hotel, London
2013 There Goes the Pretender Chisenhale Gallery, London (solo presentation as part of the 21st Century series)
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ARRHYTHMIA (Commissioning new writing)
https://bookworks.org.uk/news/arrhythmia-open-submission-series-guest-edited-by-katrina-palmer/
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SELECTED GROUP PUBLICATIONS
2023 ‘Elizabeth Price: Unsettled Histories’ in Schirn Magazine + https://various-artists.com/elizabeth-price/
2021 ‘Did Anyone Read the Book?’ in Magic: Documents of Contemporary Art series, Whitechapel Gallery/MIT
2020 ‘Commentary’ in Slow Dans, Elizabeth Price, Artangel
2014 ‘Absalon’s Cells’, in The Object: Documents of Contemporary Art series, Whitechapel Gallery/MIT
2011 ‘Relief (A Remote Object Of Thought)’, in Penelope Curtis and Keith Wilson eds., Modern British Sculpture, Royal Academy of Art, London
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katrina_palmer_a
katrinapalmerstudio@gmail.com
Katrina Palmer HOME 