Lara Marrett, Breathing in from far away 2022, ink and acrylic on cotton canvas and cedar stretcher, 122 x 153cm. Photo:Jek Maurer. Courtesy: the artist and Sullivan + Strumpf.

Sullivan + Strumpf presents works by Lara Merrett.

“There is an ethereal touch to Lara Merrett’s work that makes it stand out from other abstract work. It’s almost like breath. At the same time, they are very grounded in texture and mark making. It’s when she combines these two opposites that her work really hits the mark. The new work is really a level up, where she’s been able to bring her thinking to new ways of painting. It’s exciting to watch an artist progress like this.” – Ursula Sullivan

“Lara Merrett’s career has been built around a conversation with colour, and a deep, unabating passion and interest in how its direct affect and impact can create different forms of encounter, consciousness, and awareness in audiences. Colour informs the two dimensional and expanded formats of her paintings, including the more recent sculptural incursions in spaces designed to invite participation, and that are a form of embodiment and architecture through colour. In the past four to five years, Merrett’s work has really undergone a transformation. Her long and established engagement with colour field abstraction draws from a range of social, cultural and political lineages, and is a radical way of thinking – and a radical form for encounter. She has consciously considered social impact, activism, and collaboration not only as part of her expanded painting practice, but now as a means of generating expanded communities as well.” – Alexie Glass-Kantor