I was born and raised in Roanoke, Virginia. My grandfather, Allen Ingles Palmer, was a well-known painter in the Roanoke Valley, and though I never knew him I was surrounded and influenced by his watercolors and adopted painting as my outlet at an early age.

I moved to Montana in 1994, and studied fine art at the University of Montana in Missoula for two years. I completed my formal art education at the San Francisco Art Institute, earning a BFA in 1999. City life was exciting, but the lure of Montana was too strong, and I returned to the Big Sky state in 2000. Today, I make my home in Bozeman where I paint in my studio at home.

I have a true passion for the wild spaces of the west, as I document my experiences of nature in evocative abstract atmospheric-landscapes.  I love to work with color and light in representing the moods and places I have seen in the wilderness. I have backpacked extensively in Montana, Canada, Wyoming, and Alaska, and draw on these locations to create my oils. My work is as much about memory as it is about place. I look upon my paintings as a map of my life, which I am constantly creating.