Biography

Jack Mernin (b. 1991, Pennsylvania) is an artist who divides his time between New York City and Belleville, PA. Mernin received his B.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014.

Mernin works through an inspirational image or encounter, pushing representation to the very limits of legibility and activating the unwieldy significance of gesture. He uses watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper to develop these inquiries into form, gesture, and meaning making. Works of art in their own right, Mernin’s works on paper offer insight into the many moments of perception and representation that accumulate while he gestates his larger paintings.

Mernins’ large-scale paintings present translations of visual encounters accumulated over time. Resisting full representation or abstraction, Mernin’s fragmentary forms collide and muddle until a surprising image inadvertently reveals itself. Dynamic color relationships absorb spontaneous structures, establishing seductive, unstable compositions that both command and retain attention.

Recent solo exhibitions include Still Wants in Motion, JO-HS NY (2023), Lilies and Parable, Trotter&Sholer NY (2021), Future Novel, Trotter&Sholer NY (2020), Every Now and Again, Altro Mondo, Manila (2019) and Lansgage, Kanto Gallery, Manila (2018).

Selected works