Booth Gallery is proud to present The Stranger, a debut solo exhibition by Alex Merritt, on view from May 17th to June 12, 2019. Popularly known for his large-scale oils and brutal approach to painting, Alex Merritt will be exhibiting 20 new paintings and drawings in large and small formats.
Merritt's works include a recurring motif visualized through expansive landscapes contrasted by isolated figures who directly confront the viewer. In works like Hermetic Bliss, the subject is visceral and haunting yet vulnerably human. A distinct narrative is intentionally concealed and left for the viewer's interpretation, hidden among the layers, much like the artist's own process.
Through a constant working and reworking, the paint is scraped down and built up to range from liquid to thick paste. Paint 3-4 inches thick on the canvas exudes depth, revealing sculptural weight in 2-dimensional images. Subject and object become one, the finished works a direct result of these delicious layers that undulate in and out of one another, often obfuscating the literal.
Merritt's influences include the likes of Chaim Soutine, Joan Eardley, Antonio Mancini, and Frank Auerbach, who inspired such bravado in the composition of large-scale works and experimentation with surface quality.
Alex Merritt, born in 1981 in Washington, DC., received his B.F.A. in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015 and completed his MFA from The New York Academy of Art, in 2018, joining the Booth Gallery later that year in June 2018. His first Solo show to date, works are from numerous private collections worldwide. A collection of his works was recently acquired by the Ilana Goor Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel.
On Friday, May 17, 2019, an opening reception will be held from 6-9 pm and is open to the public. Alex Merrit's solo exhibition, "The Stranger" will be on show at the Paul Booth Gallery, at 325 W. 38th St in New York until June 12, 2019.
