Merrill French [NRA 2025]

First name: Merrill ;
Middle name:  ;
Last name: French ;

Member: Non-Resident Artist Member ; 
Begin: 2025 ;
End: n/a ;

Biography:

Merrill was passionate about art since her first box of Crayola crayons, but lacking the self-confidence to pursue a career in the arts, earned a BS degree in biology. She has always believed that art and science are absolutely compatible as they are both driven by imaginative thought and curiosity. Science taught her to observe the world more closely, while art taught her new ways of perceiving what she saw.

She is always in search of a subject whether walking down city streets or along the coast of Maine. It might be the façade of and old building, the rounded cylinder of a water tower, or the interplay of light and shadow that strikes her. She is fascinated with the geometry of architecture, the interaction of lines and forms shaped by perspective and the atmospheric effects created in all types of weather and light.

Merrill recently completed a 20 painting commission for a Manhattan real estate management company. Her recent awards were: first prize at the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT which included a solo show in 2020. She also won second prize at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain, CT in 2021. She was awarded 2nd prize in NAWA’s “Home” show in 2021, and was awarded a 5 artist show at Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT in 2025.
Permanent collections include: Mattatuck Museum, Jane Voorhees Zimmerlie Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ (through NAWA), the Belfast Free Public Library, Belfast, ME, and her painting “Driving the Goshen Road” was selected to hang in the Litchfield County Courthouse as part of the “Art in Public Places” project. She exhibits her work nationally, primarily in New York and New England.