Tanya Merrill's Animal Instinct
After a move upstate and a newborn, Merrill’s new work responds to the world around her.
Two life-changing experiences lie at the heart of the captivating new oil-and-graphite paintings in Tanya Merrill’s exhibition, Land animal, house animal: The artist gave birth to her daughter in June, and her family recently relocated from New York City to upstate New York.
In her new environment, Merrill decisively challenges a pervasive anthropocentric worldview that deems humans superior and animals lesser. She foregrounds local animals as sentient beings with their own motivations and desires, including a cat in two terrific paintings, a wide-eyed and inquisitive dairy cow, and the Northern harrier (or marsh hawk) with piercing eyes and luscious gray, white, and black feathers that she frequently observes from her studio (“Marsh hawk,” 2026). This bird painting echoes regional folk art and Audubon.
