Angelos Merges
Easter Egg,
Oil on canvas 170 x 300 cm
2023
Angelos Merges’ painting compositions deal with current social issues while explor- ing painting strategies that correspond to the post-analog era. Strongly influenced by recent events that reshaped the socio-political landscape of Greece, his interest focuses on themes that revolve around the notion of liminality as a human condition. In his work, events that occurred over the last decade and personal memories blend, producing a series of images that are interpreted without being explained. Issues that emerged during the economic and refugee crisis meet memories from growing up in the island of Chios, his homeland, creating ambiguous images that oscillate between the intimate and the unfamiliar. The series of paintings form open-ended narratives offering an intermediate space that prompts the viewers to position themselves and to fill in the narrative based on their own perceptions. In the depicted scenes, the exposed and the unseen, the initiated and the outsider seem to be in constant exchange in an attempt to raise questions about shifts of perspective and positions of power. Belonging to a generation of artists who grew up during the time of digital outburst, he approaches painting as a medium that enables the artist to focus on content and method in an era where screen culture holds a dominant role in everyday life. Angelos Merges (*1989, Chios, Greece) He received an Integrated Master from Athens School of Fine Arts in the direction of Painting in 2020 and a Master in Fine Arts from Zurich University of the Arts in 2023. He currently lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland.
