Jess Merritt
Albuquerque, NM
Cottonwoods, Winter
Watercolor Icosahedron
20" x 20" x 20"
2024
$6500
About
Jess Merritt is a multidisciplinary artist, who originally received a degree in fine art photography in the 1990s, and now has expanded to utilize a multimedia approach with which to explore and engage with the world around her. Since 2020, she has focused on exploring and mapping the narrative of her personal journey through contemporary southwestern USA landscapes and liminal spaces, balancing the juxtaposition between landscapes/cityscapes, dream states/physical locations, and hope/loss.
Jess’ current media of choice are pinhole photography and mixed media painting. Pinhole photography is a primitive form of film photography, effectively a light proof cardboard box with a small aperture, or pin sized hole, on one side that is used to expose film. She combines her love of pinhole photography with urban exploration and backcountry solo hiking, transporting her handmade cardboard camera with her as she explores badlands, canyons, and manmade concrete labyrinths. The sights documented on her wanderings frequently reoccur as elements of her paintings, which meet at the intersection between abstraction and surrealism.
Artist Statement
Through my work I use the beauty of NM’s landscapes as metaphors for mapping the narrative of my personal journey to process and overcome trauma. I have Complex PTSD and use a combination of landscape imagery and biological abstractions to represent the challenges and successes associated with that condition. I initially started with 2-dimensional watercolor paintings but have been recently creating works that challenge the common structure of reality. I now take watercolor painted or hand illustrated 2-dimensional components and incorporate them into 3-dimensional mobiles, dioramas, and polyhedra sculptures that all correlate to an aspect of trauma processing.
The “32.52,-106.98b” diorama was inspired by rock climbing through a slot canyon and is a metaphor for how successfully making it through a challenge can be beautiful. The “Cotttonwoods, Winter” polyhedron is a biological abstraction inspired by a peaceful winter hike under the cottonwood trees. It was painted flat and then folded into a 3-dimensional icosahedron with imagery blending together on all 20 sides. It can be either hung or presented on a pedestal.
Art from Jess Merritt in other TAAC exhibitions