David Merritt

“At the heart of [my] work is an exploration of the embodied and performative aspects of language.” 2011

David Merritt’s conceptual drawings, sculpture, videos and site-specific installations express his interest in the representation and meaning of words and the confluence of nature and culture.

Merritt received the Gold Medal award for his top standing when he graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a fine arts degree. His interest in conceptual art burgeoned during his master’s studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the early 1980s. He teaches drawing at the University of Western Ontario.

Illustrating the experience of listening to music in an ambitious example of what Merritt labels “chart drawings,” Untitled (Hey) incorporates song titles he gathered from Internet databases beginning with “Hey.” In the wake of the first word, song titles trail behind in a dense swarm of words evoking hundreds of melodies.