BENNY
MERRIS

Benny Merris is known for his uniquely process-oriented and wildly colorful approach to the expansive field of painting. An Other Another is a luscious example of Merris’s idiosyncratic dialogue between painting and photography. Creating a type of “plein-air” painting, Merris uses his own arm as a canvas to create a figurative presence and an abstract disruption to the surrounding landscape. Through stretching and bending, he seeks a sweet spot where the painted arm interacts in a harmonic way with the encompassing natural forms. Yet concurrently the painted abstract forms break out of the picture plane with alien dischord. Merris’s intuitive process yields an image that is simultaneously uncanny, curious and brightly optimistic.

Benny Merris is a New York-based artist who grew up in Boise, Idaho. He received a BA from University of Massachusetts Boston, an MFA from Glasgow School of Art, and was a member of the inaugural Paint School cohort, a master class run by Shandaken Projects in New York City. Merris' work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Cleopatra’s, Brooklyn; Jeff Bailey Gallery, Hudson; Nina Johnson, Miami; Battat Galerie, Montreal; Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam; Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow; and Kunsthal Rotterdam. Merris has participated in numerous group exhibitions including presentations at GRIMM Gallery, NYC; Essex Flowers, NYC; Murray Guy, NYC; Regina Rex, NYC; LAXART, Los Angeles; Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Houston; Boston University Art Gallery, Boston; and the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff. Merris has been an artist-in-residence at The Banff Centre, Denniston Hill, and Offshore Residency. His work is in the AkzoNobel Art Foundation collection.

AN OTHER
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