Merrin Eirth
Oil paint is a fleshy thing with ethereal tendencies and therein lies a poetic narrative well suited to my purposes.
Titles of my pictures intentionally offer important clues, fusing literary references with observations from everyday experience. Rather than a description of the images, my titles are focused on core ideas and strategies driving the work. The surrealist mindset and Theatre of the Absurd have particular relevance.
Working on a small scale provides me with perfect rarefied conditions needed to distil dense content with sensibility and purpose, wit and provocation. Intimate contact with the picture space provides an opportunity for viewers to connect with the details and herein we are more likely to have a personal exchange of ideas.
A further strategy appreciates the understanding that condensed environments allow issues to be explored with special intensity, the mental space is fully occupied and there is nowhere for anyone to hide.
My pictures tickle the senses with wry humour. Whether comical, stoic, charismatic, or just plain ordinary, inanimate and animated subjects play out their serial absurdities, like performers in a one act play. Some of my paintings are monologues and others require the ensemble, nevertheless, the characters parody themselves, pursuing their own rationale, or lack of it, and sometimes they will disturb us as deeply as they disturb themselves.
Ideas that motivate me are found in ambiguous zones. Peculiarities poke holes in simplified views of humanness and they do not fit neatly into our story book fantasies. When gaps in our thinking make nonsense of the rules we construct, there is mischief indeed and humour afoot. Lateral interpretation is preferred. I invite the viewer to play their own role in the construction of relevant meaning.
Click here for artwork by Merrin Eirth
Exhibitions at Tacit Art
2024 I Swallowed a Fly (Comedy of the Humours)
This exhibition is inspired by multiple narratives about the human predicament and how it tests our resilience: the Marcel Marceau story; the Chinese tale of the Cut Sleeve and the Bitten Peach; Dylan/Hendrix The Joker and the Thief; Puccini's Madam Butterfly, Catch 22, my dad’s ‘coming of age’ sailor story plus a few other well-known anecdotes and adages that have travelled with me over the years.
The pictures are larger now, and as such they present a complex set of exciting new pictorial challenges. Ideas vie with each other in a scaled-up arena that demand a revised painting methodology and therefore further risk taking on my part. I am the egg woman, the sorcerer’s apprentice, the clown and Alice, all at once.
2023 My Theatre of Errors
My Theatre of Errors visualises an appreciation of human folly, vulnerability and the perfect imperfections in humanness.
Ideas that motivate the artist are found in ambiguous zones. Peculiarities poke holes in simplified views of humanness and they do not fit neatly into our storybook fantasies. When gaps in our thinking make nonsense of the rules we construct, there is mischief indeed and humour afoot. Working on a small scale provides Eirth with perfect rarefied conditions needed to distil dense content with sensibility and purpose, wit and provocation. Intimate contact with the picture space provides an opportunity for viewers to connect with the details and herein we are more likely to have a personal exchange of ideas.
Exhibitions
solo
2024 I Swallowed a Fly (Comedy of the Humours) - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2023 My Theatre of Errors - Tacit Art, Melbourne
2011 Docks Hearts - NewQuay Docks, Melbourne
2007 Research and Respond - Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne
Feel - Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Trust Me - Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
Toxic Tease and Other Obsessions - Benalla Art Gallery
2005 Les Petites Morts - Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Toxic Tease - Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
2003 Black Tomato-Empathic Spaces - Health Arts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital
Lucky - Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Black Tomato - Span Galleries, Melbourne
1998 Euphoric Slumber: Mother’s Reprieve and Kissing Verity - Platform, Melbourne
Primary Narcissism and the Sexed Maternal Body - Linden Gallery, Melbourne
1997 Kissing Pussy - Latrobe College of Art and Design, Melbourne
1995 Eight Licks Nine - Celf Gallery, Sydney
1994 Three Times Three - Switchback Gallery, Monash University, Churchill
1993 Pussy Galore - Temple Studios, Melbourne
1992 Truthful Lies - Swan Hill Regional Gallery
1990 One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night - Realities Gallery, Melbourne
1989 The Ham Wedding - Realities Gallery, Melbourne
1987 Betwixt the Devil & the Deep Blue Sea - Realities Gallery, Melbourne
1986 Paradise in Paradox - Gertrude St Studios, Melbourne
group
2023 Artbox - Tacit Art, Melbourne
SUBSTRATE 23 - Tacit Art, Melbourne
Bound Pigment - Tacit Art, Melbourne
The Last Picture Show - Duck Rabbit Gallery. Sydney
2022 TACIT Still Life Prize - Tacit Art, Melbourne
ANL Maritime Art Prize - Melbourne
Apropos - Duck Rabbit Gallery, Sydney
The Dutch Project - WestEnd Art Space, Melbourne
WRAP - East Gippsland Art Gallery. Bairnsdale
2021 Waverley Art Prize - Sydney
Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award - Brisbane
Wyndham Art Prize - Melbourne
2017 Art 150 – 9 x 5 - Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
2013 Bah Humbug - D11, Melbourne
Pursuit - Singapore Art Fair
Pursuit - Melbourne Art Fair
Like Mike: a Tribute to Mike Brown - Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
2012 Contemporary Australian Drawing 2 - University of the Arts, London
Modern Australian Painting - Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
2009 From Here to Eternity (Victorian Tapestry Workshop) - Australian Embassy, Washington D.C.
From Here to Eternity (Victorian Tapestry Workshop) - National Wool Museum, Geelong
Collaborations - Peter Lancaster Press, Melbourne
2008 Bias Bound - Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne
From Here to Eternity (Victorian Tapestry Workshop) - Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide
2007 From Here to Eternity (Victorian Tapestry Workshop) - S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney
From Here to Eternity (Victorian Tapestry Workshop) - Benalla Art Gallery
2006 Eat My Face - Big Day Out, Melbourne
2005 Warrnambool Contemporary Art Prize - Warrnambool
City of Hobart Art Prize - Hobart City Art Gallery
The Art of Collaboration - Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore
Banyule Works on Paper Award - Melbourne
ANL Maritime Art Prize - Melbourne
2004 Sticks and Stones - Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston
The Alice Prize - Alice Springs
Victorian Tapestry Workshop - Australian Galleries, Melbourne
2003 Robert Jacks Drawing Prize - Bendigo Art Gallery
Sleeps With Angels – Sex and Death - Stephen McLaughlan Gallery, Melbourne
Nillumbik Art Award - Melbourne
2002 Transit Narratives - Le Venezie, Italy
Transit Narratives - QCA, Brisbane
Noxious Laughing Gas - VCA, Melbourne
2001 Exchange - Victorian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne/ Singapore Artists
1994 Unpeeled Art - Art Gallery of Ballarat
1992 Drawings by Contemporary Melbourne Artists - RMIT Gallery, Melbourne
1991 Lust for Life - Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart
Recent Acquisitions - NGV, Melbourne
Raising the Furies - Benalla Art Gallery
Raising the Furies - Shepparton Art Gallery
1990 Raising the Furies - Albury Art Gallery
Raising the Furies - Wangaratta Art Gallery
1989 The Monaro Show - Bendigo Art School
1988 Paradise in Paradox - Gertrude St Studios, Melbourne
C(Overt) - PS1, Long Island, New York
1987 Here & There - Monash Gallery, Melbourne
1984 The Opening - Gertrude St Studios, Melbourne
Collections
Art Gallery of Ballarat - Diamond Valley Art Collection - Hobart City Art Gallery - Monash Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne - Myer Foundation - National Gallery of Victoria - The World Congress Centre, Melbourne - Victoria College, Deakin University - Victorian State government
Awards
2017 Certificate IV Training & Assessment - Smart Training (online)
1998 Master of Fine Arts - Monash University
1981 Post Graduate Diploma - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1979 Diploma of Art & Design - Prahran College of Advanced Education
1977 Diploma of Teaching - Kelvin Grove of Advanced Education
2022 TACIT Still Life Prize - The Art Room Award
ANL Maritime Art Prize - Finalist (Commended)
2021 Waverley Art Prize - Finalist
Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award - Finalist
Wyndham Art Prize - Finalist
2011 City of Melbourne Grant - Arts Projects, NewQuay Docks, Melbourne
2005 Warrnambool Contemporary Art Prize - Finalist
City of Hobart Art Prize - First Prize
Banyule Works on Paper Award - Finalist
ANL Maritime Art Prize - Finalist
2004 The Alice Prize - Finalist
2003 Robert Jacks Drawing Prize - First Prize
Nillumbik Art Award - Finalist
1987 Australia Council Residency Grant - Vence Studios, France
1987 Australia Council Residency Grant - PS1, New York
Art-based employment
2013 - present Diploma Teaching - Latrobe College of Art and Design, Melbourne
2004 - 2013 Head of Drawing - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1998 - 2003 Studio Drawing Lecturer - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1993 - 1997 Studio Painting Lecturer - Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
1989 - 1992 Studio Painting Lecturer - Prahran College of Advanced Education