INTERVIEW: ARTIST TANYA MERRILL
https://www.ssense.com/en-us/editorial/culture/she-leaves-a-mark-meet-artist-tanya-merrill
There's something hypnotic about listening to an entire album from start to finish. You begin to sense an invisible network between each song: beats from the first track reverberate with the emotions of the last, like a central nervous system made of low frequencies.
If Tanya Merrill's paintings could sing, they might have this same echoing hum. Her figurative images—like a loosely drawn cat eyeing a lobster, or a woman drumming her fingers across her naked thigh—speak to each other across scale and color. Her deceptively carefree brushstrokes blend impressionist notes with graphic precision. Often, her paintings convey a degree of humor. In a cartoonish barnyard scene, for example, the tables have turned and the animals are attacking the farmer, but behind this comic tone is an exploration of social codes and power dynamics.
Over the last three years, her work has steadily gained attention for its gestural quality. A recent Columbia MFA graduate, she has exhibited internationally at numerous galleries and museums including Gavin Brown’s Enterprise/Unclebrother and Almine Rech Gallery, London. Her work will be included in an upcoming exhibition at Gagosian Gallery (New York) in September 2019, and with Half Gallery at FIAC (Paris) in October.
Tanya and I met fourteen years ago, a week before we started our first year in college. I remember she was wearing a sleeveless top (blue) and a long beaded necklace (green). It’s funny to think back to that moment: I was about to meet someone whose creative vocation would deeply influence and mingle with my own. We've celebrated every step of each other's creative career—my first byline, her first exhibited painting—and for several years Tanya worked with me as creative director of the magazine I publish, Riot of Perfume.
This summer, we met at her studio—a converted bodega in Brooklyn—to talk about handwriting, reinterpreting art history, and how great it feels to wear nothing waist down.
