UK born painter Neal Palmer immigrated to New Zealand in 1998 and has been painting full time ever since.Through the exploration of the New Zealand environment he has discovered subjects that evoke strong emotional responses such as Harakeke (NZ flax). He is inspired by the natural forms, composition, spaces and shapes, as well as nostalgic references his botannical subjects provide.Neal blends visual languages within his practice, exploring how the languages of colour, texture, pattern and abstract forms can inform and cross-reference each other. He likes to develop work that uses the illusion of a photographic ‘depth of field’ to allow images to slip in and out of pictorialism and abstraction through shifting the viewer’s conscious reactions to colour, composition, and form. In this episode we have a lovely conversation about how Neal found himself in NZ and how his new environment informed his art practice. He shares his gilding and painting processes and we talk about his latest artist residency and body of work created at Auckland Botanic Gardens. In the last 25 years Neal has had 27 solo or joint shows. We talk about his solo exhibition Thorny Issues, which was created in response to the Covid pandemic and lockdowns.  https://nealpalmer.co.nz/ Ngā mihi, thanks for listening!See the artist's work on our blog https://www.creativematters.co.nz/blog You can follow us for updates on https://www.instagram.com/creativematterspodcast/ Please rate and review our show to help others find us https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/creative-matters/id1561034043