Jeff Bailey Gallery is pleased to present macrodaffodilia, an exhibition of new paintings and photographs by Benny Merris.
We share a deep kinship – material and psychic - with all that we see. On a molecular level, 35% of our DNA is identical to that of a daffodil. It’s time to start acting like it!
Benny Merris makes paintings that generate relationships between nature and abstraction. They are a roving dialogue between his total being and the medium. He works indoors and outdoors on a wide variety of supports. The paintings are built with abundant color, rhythmic gradients, architectonic torque and oscillation between highly composed marks and wild abandon… a process of discovery, and confluence of visual and emotional energy.
macrodaffoldilia surveys Merris’ ecosystem of painting. The exhibition includes new photographs from the ongoing An Other Another series, taken on the day of the total solar eclipse in August 2017. Vitruvian Contractor Bags record the gestures and gestalt origami of the artist using his body as printing press, alchemically welding plastic into plastic, and yielding unlikely tapestries.
This is Benny Merris’ second solo exhibition at the gallery. His work has been shown at national venues including Contemporary Art Museum Houston, LAXART, Nina Johnson and Cleopatra’s and internationally at Kunsthal Rotterdam, Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Center, Glasgow Project Room, Battat Galerie, and Cokkie Snoei.
