Artist Talk: Palmarin Merges

Palmarin Merges is a Filipina American artist whose work draws from the desire to become more sustainable by re-using materials close at hand and by adapting restriction as a generative force for creation. Trained as a Printmaker, she now works primarily in mixed media, especially household waste - plastic, cardboard, etc. These common materials taken from the fabric of her daily life are processed and then transformed into pattern, collage and concrete poetry.

Raised in Hawaii and California, she left Oregon in Dec. 2019 with her husband to return to Japan, this time to Tokyo. Her adventures now include exploring a variety of traditional crafts and wandering the areas in and around the Yamanote Line.

Palmarin Merges holds an MFA Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited in Japan, the Philippines, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. She has previously taught Relief, Screenprint and drawing at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Marylhurst University and Pacific University.

www.palmarinmerges.com