Those who have seen her work immediately notice its ‘open’, soft character. Organic, predominantly white shapes, appear to flow naturally into each other. This changes under the influence of glancing light. Consequently her pieces change from moment to moment, giving the impression during the day of ‘breathing’. Merian’s art has its origins in the beautiful, natural environment of ‘Het Groene Hart’, an area located within the center of Holland. This is where she grew up, surrounded by stylized grasslands, glittering waterways, whimsical pollard willows and endless, cloudy skies.
Merian often combines various disciplines in her work. Her reliefs result from a sculptural approach to the flat surface. She uses different materials to experiment with lines, from soft to hard. This is not only visible in the end result, but also in printing and casting molds that she makes from linoleum, wood, steel and silicone rubber. She has also developed her own unique working method on canvas. Fabric is stretched, stitched and filled until the desired shape appears. Mixed media are used to merge the material into one image.
Merian’s love for relief arose in her first year at the academy, when she painted over in white one of her paintings and the glancing light brought the imperfections on the canvas to life. During the same period, she left an etching plate in acid for too long and subsequently decided to make a print without ink. This led to her fascination with the play of light and shadow: the serenity of the smooth surface with a subtle contrast here and there that radiates tranquility and quiets the image. The images trigger a desire to touch them. Consequently she calls her work ’tangibles’.
Merian’s language of form is organic, recognizable and strongly guided by intuition and sensitivity. Her images are figurative but not realistic. They are often silhouettes, shadows or mirror images that are related to reality but with great care reduced to a few flowing lines and volumes. They are reminiscent of the fleeting nature of our perception and memory, of images that we may want to hold on to but that fade, in any case, over time. By capturing the essence in form, Merian creates space for personal interpretation.
Lady Justice is at odds with Merian’s refined reliefs, but it is also unmistakably hers. Lady Justice is a robust, larger-than-life sculpture made for a Rotterdam law firm. Use of old dowels from Rotterdam Harbor were a physical and emotional challenge. She was forced to let the original design go, to allow the image to emerge of itself. She later used this ‘letting go’ as a starting point in the design for the wall-filling installation at the entrance to Bresc’s new business premises in Werkendam.
Merian abstracts not only human figures but also the human environment, nature and architecture, all in her own unique way. An example is her Skyline Rotterdam, lasered from one piece of stainless steel. The piece mirrors the Maasboulevard in the Kop van Zuid with a deliberate interplay of lines. She is currently working on a series of works about Rotterdam, the city where she studied and lived for several years. A solo exhibition of this will appear at Arte de la ley, a new location for contemporary art in Rotterdam, in the spring of 2024.