Untitled

Palermo made textile paintings between 1966 and 1972 using variations in the material to create works without using paint. "Palermo discovered single-color, industrially dyed fabrics which could be purchased from department stores for next to nothing. These cheap, everyday, commonplace materials were now the medium through which modernism expressed itself. The traditional parameters of painting were now playfully abandoned, not least the frames." (K. Schrenk, Palermo, Bonn 1995, p. 25) These works convey Palermo's experimentation with composition as it relates to landscape painting and the use of different horizon lines. They also experiment with the effect of complementary colors and issues of tonality. In these works, "the combination of different materials gave way to uniform cotton fabrics which in turn yield to color as the dominant element." (ibid, p. 30)