Fine Artist Charly ”Carlos” Palmer

Charly Palmer was born in 1960 in Fayette, Alabama and raised in Milwaukee. He relocated to Chicago to study Art and Design at American Academy of Art and School of the Art Institute. As a graphic designer and illustrator, he has run a successful design studio with a Fortune 500 clientele. As an instructor, he teaches design and illustration and painting at the post-secondary level—most recently—Spelman College. Currently, Palmer devotes his life to his creative goals and has established himself as a fine artist of note.

 

 

Over 30 years and counting, Charly Palmer’s art speaks for itself. Literally, Palmer's paintbrush is as a Griot. In every painting, he bears witness of African ancestry and contemporary experiences — rhythmic, visual stories that shifts what each viewer believes to see — should one dare to look deeply.

 

Palmer has an innate awareness of documenting the intricacies of Blackness with such depth, patterns, symbols, and textures that it is easy to forget that he begins with a blank canvas. The ways in which he applies acrylic is somewhat its own aesthetic that transcends where one’s thought begins and ends.

 

As a Fine Artist who paints upwards of 50 paintings a year, Palmer’s heart’s desire? To be used as a vessel and expression of something higher than himself.