Piece description from the artist
This illustration was based on a series of photos I took very quickly when riding down Grand Avenue in St. Louis after taking my daughter to a daytime children's symphony concert one Sunday afternoon. I don't recall the concert, but I do recall the sky. It wasn't particularly impressive, but it struck me as being very much in contrast with the city scene and lurking evening shadows. It was just as stark and looming as late fall/early winter late afternoon tends to be. It was vast and opaque, but also endless. It wanted to suck up the scene, but the street and the buildings and the people were too set in the shadows to leave the ground. The street before spread out and got tiny and small in the distance, and eventually turns and disappears. But that vast, blank sky still persisted, still existed and still went on and on in juxtaposition with the city shifting and settling down in between their matinee and evening performances.
Leah Merriman is native to St. Louis, working primarily in encaustics to create ethereal, layered abstract landscapes on wood and paper. She also creates detailed illustrations of urban scenery and architecture and will often combine the two.
Merriman was influenced heavily by personal childhood and young adult illnesses and often found that being able to escape her own physical situation was only possible through her mind. She creates worlds you can "go into” and look around. Places you can stay in for a while, watch the scenery shift light, textures and colors in conjunction with the time of day. By practicing stillness and the awareness of being in the moment, an appreciation of your own mind’s ability to travel inward can be honed while still being acutely aware of your immediate physical world, striking an intriguing balance through the marriage of patience and escapism.
Merriman apprenticed in sculpture and illustration under local St. Louis Master Artist Rudolph Torrini in her late teen and early adult years.
She studied Drawing and Sculpture at Fontbonne University in St. Louis as well as photography and videography at Webster University, St. Louis, MO. She
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