When he was 19, Andrei Palmer noticed a neighbor building an Airstream-type camper. Intrigued by the process, Palmer set out to make a miniature version of the camper with materials he found around the house.
He used cardboard, wood, poster paper, fabrics, sticks from the garden, blister and food packaging.
From there he built his first car, a black Lincoln. Since that time Palmer has created 218 handmade pieces. The lion’s share of his work focuses on vintage cars, but his collection also includes a lawnmower with a motorized blade, bathroom fixtures, a dual-motor washer and dryer, and a film projector, among other things.
Today, at 29, Palmer’s stable of cars includes a Rolls Royce, a DeLorean, a Peterbilt truck and a cement mixer. There’s a hearse and a Volkswagen bus, which he made for his father, Tim Palmer.
Recently relocated to Vero Beach from Georgia with his parents, both writers, Palmer’s renown has only grown. He is in the process of setting up his studio so he can continue to create his scratch-built cars.
Acknowledged by dealers and collectors alike as part of the art brut, or raw art, movement, Palmer’s work comes from outside the boundaries of culture. Considered outsider art, his rough, edgy models are reminiscent of work by Alberto Giacometti and Ralph Steadman.
Outsider artists are self-taught; some have developmental and other disabilities. The art form, which has come to be recognized as “true” art during the past 30 years, was originally identified in the early 1970s. According to French artist Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term “art brut” in 1947, these artists who have never had formal instruction gain their unique perspectives and unconventional ideas from a place of emotional pain.
“In this kind of art, the artist is so closely tied to their work that you have to ‘get’ them both,” explains Catherine Palmer, Andrei’s mother. “The art depends on the artist and the artist’s story is what is important in the art. People who see Andrei’s art who know what outsider art is immediately recognize his work as having been born from tragedy.”
Palmer began his life in Ceaușescu-era Romania, in an orphanage near Transylvania. His life as an infant was like thousands of others there – he lay idly in his crib with no more than five minutes of caregiver attention each day. That lack of human contact and interaction can cause children of these institutional orphanages severe trauma in their development.
According to his adoptive mom, Andrei spent the first six years of his life bouncing from one orphanage to another. Housed with other children his age, he wasn’t even aware that he had a sister living just down the hall.
“I remember some scary times in the orphanage,” recalls Palmer. “There were some good times but what I remember the most was being scared and that I didn’t have parents.”
As an adult, Palmer comes across as intelligent with a wide variety of interests. His uncanny attention to detail and intrinsic curiosity have helped him to maintain a childlike wonder about everything he encounters.
While some would label Palmer autistic, his parents say a better diagnosis would likely be post-institutionalization syndrome. Many of the Romanian orphans display autistic-like behaviors due to multi-sensory neurodevelopmental delays, believed caused by a lack of nurture in infancy.
“Andrei has so many abilities,” says Catherine Palmer. She says her other son, Geoffrey, a computer animator, put it best when he said that if Andrei hadn’t been in the orphanage he would have tested into his school’s gifted program.
“That’s what we see in him; there’s a level of brilliance that is astounding, but you put this layer of the orphanage experience on it, and it’s made life more difficult for him,” she explains.
Palmer was one of the lucky ones. Of the more than 100,000 children institutionalized each year in Romania during the 1980s, he made it out. Adopted by the Palmers, his life took a turn for the better.
Once settled with his new family in Missouri, Palmer began to thrive. He was always creative, according to his parents, making stuffed animals and pottery. One year, he won Best in Show for a watercolor painting of Shaggy, their cat. “He even won artist of the year in the ninth grade,” says his dad, Tim, proudly.
“He sees things differently than the rest of us,” says Catherine Palmer. “When he was little, he would look at books sideways and I would wonder what he was seeing.”
At that comment, Palmer shrugs. “I’m a curious person. I just look around and I like to look at pictures.”
People are initially drawn to the wit of Palmer’s funky, retro cars, but upon closer inspection, they are amazed by his attention to every last detail: working lights, steering wheels, grillwork, license plates and precise dashboards.
The exterior of the Airstream even includes a trailer hitch. And if you peek inside, there’s a bathroom and a table with built-in bench seat. Even the kitchen mixer works. All that’s missing is the smell of gas fumes.
“When he first started making them we weren’t sure what to think,” admits Catherine Palmer. “So we took them to a folk art show. People loved them.”
That was when they met Bill Peters. “He came over and told us we were in the wrong place,” says Catherine Palmer. “This is art.”
Peters then offered to buy every car Palmer made until he was set up and able to start selling his work. “That was our first realization that we had something very unique and it was actually art,” says his mom.
Palmer was eventually able to buy back the cars Peters had purchased from him – those he was willing to part with, that is.
After that, Palmer’s art hit the pavement at top speed. He’s been filmed by Atlanta’s local Fox News affiliate, and was featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. There was even a piece on him in Raw Vision, the premier magazine for Outsider art.
Peters isn’t the only one to recognize Palmer’s talent. He has shown work in galleries and museums in New York, Atlanta and France and is currently in negotiation with the GAIA Museum, an outsider art museum in Randers, Denmark, for the purchase of one of his pieces.
At one of his shows, fellow artist James Dean, known for his illustrations for Eric Litwin’s “Pete the Cat” picture books, connected with Palmer’s work; he traded one of his signed illustrations for a Palmer creation.
He has sold work through the gallery of Marion Harris on Park Avenue in New York that, along with antiques, specializes in works of self-taught art. He participated in New York’s Outsider Art Fair and most recently showed his work at Vero’s Autumn in the Park, where he booked two commission projects.
While Palmer clearly has a unique talent, his art has been encouraged by the environment he’s grown up in. After the trauma of his early years, his family has provided a safe place for him to express himself. While Palmer’s art may come from a place deep within him, he’s no longer on the outside looking in.
