Emerging artist, Molly Palmer is currently exhibiting her first public solo show, Key For Future Door, at Utrophia Project Space and is curating a night of performance and music in the exhibition space to celebrate the opening of Deptford X 10th annual art festival and the closing weekend of her show. The themes and iconographies in her work are intimate, such as childhood references, subconscious dream worlds, characters that represent her alter ego and the eccentricities often overlooked in everyday life. The recent Goldsmith’s graduate reveals her influences, inspiration, and thoughts about the art world to Art Rabbit in an interview with art historian, Stephanie Cotela.

SC:What are your thoughts regarding group shows versus solo shows?

MP:I have been involved in quite a few group shows. But I have been working in a very isolated way to prepare for this exhibition. I think that my practice is eccentric and I find it difficult to make that clear in a group environment. I prefer solo exhibitions, as a way of growing and learning as an artist, maturing ideas in an insular way gives me the control that group shows might now offer. I’m still interested in group shows but I am already planning my next solo show and that is more of an interest for me.

I am part of an artist collective but we don’t work collaboratively, we just bounce ideas off each other and encourage each other’s work while working independently.

SC: What are some of the obstacles, if any, that you have encountered in trying to be a successful artist (female artist)?

MP:I think there are some very strong female artists around at the moment, which is quite encouraging, like Louise Bourgeois and all the Brit art girls still plugging away. I’ve never really thought that being female is a factor in my work, which I guess is an encouraging thing. Although, I guess in the art market, you do see quite an imbalance. Luckily, I haven’t experienced any obstacles that relate to being female. I don’t think that it is something that needs to be fought, all of the dramatic feminists positioning is kind of over and now it’s just the case of the way that you act dictates what happens to you. I haven’t encountered much of an obstacle being a woman; I think most obstacles can be circumnavigated. My main obstacle has been time.

SC:Regarding the art market, what are your thoughts regarding men making so much more than women artists do?

MP:Generally speaking, I think men are more business-like, commercially aggressive whereas women find it hard to separate from their work, they form sentimental attachments and tend to be immersed in their own work, creating art for art’s sake. Having said that, I have a male artist friend that finds it very difficult to part with his work and refuses to sell anything.

There were actually more women than men in my program at Goldsmith’s but I think that men seem to continue whereas women veer off their career path, maybe to start a family or something along those lines. Also men seem to exude a sense of entitlement, as if it is a more accepted career for a man to be an artist than it is for a woman.

SC:Where does your inspiration come from? What artists do you admire and/or have influenced your work?

MP:Lately, I have been quite interested in medieval church paintings, Byzantine iconic art, geometric shapes, wall paintings, such as in ancient Greece. I’m interested in the flat surfaces of medieval paintings and sculpture combined with everyday life, quirky things. Everything and anything inspires me especially taking things out of context to create different meanings, for instance, my Death of the Nile sculpture taken from the literature of Agatha.

Other influences include programs like Twin Peaks, abstracted colourful confectionaries, archaeological objects, creative collaborations with my ten-year-old sister, and zoological illustrations and cartoons.

I admire the artist, Iva Cutler, who is a poet and musician, he started making art in his 50s and 60s, and his work is funny and beautiful but also lonely and sad.

SC:Tell me about the work in your current exhibition.

MP:There is a theatrical element to it, the staging of certain scenes, it reflects the dreaming process brought to fruition and ending up different from what I expected. I moved things around a lot until they just clicked. I think that the challenging BFA program at Goldsmith’s brought about a condensed period of change in my work and taught me when to interrogate my work versus letting it flow and this exhibition was an opportunity to explore different meanings within my work by arranging things in a certain way and really thinking about each piece and it’s meaning within the space.

SC:The concept of an alter ego is prominent in your paintings, sculptures, music, and performances; can you explain this a bit further?

MP:It’s really about the play-acting that you do as a child, creating characters, making imagination into a real thing. The alter ego that shows up in my work is more of a subconscious thing, a personal attachment to my work entering the work as different characters. I make up stories with characters that look similar but are different. My art making is a very solitary pursuit and a very personal thing.