HYDRA

Memphis artist Lester Julian Merriweather produces work in a variety of scales and media. Merriweather previously exhibited in Nashville in the 2017 exhibition, Art of the South and hosted a 2014 solo exhibition at seedSpace titled Eventually the Pendulum Swings. Recently, Merriweather has employed photographic imagery in the form of collage, placing cut paper sourced from magazine advertisements onto massive painted canvases.
With a collection of works based on the juxtaposition of mythological and pop-cultural references titled #ThoseMonstersProducedByReasonableSleep, Merriweather addresses the materialism of modern life by integrating the perspective of the Black imagination. Using images from luxury ads, He references the historical context in which our material-obsessed culture originated by using collage in a recognizable genre such as the marine landscape. To further develop the concept, Merriweather creates contemporary versions of imagined mythological scenes. In the works on view in HYDRA, ships sail over oceans and interact with remnants cut from The VANILLA EXTRACT© Series, challenging viewers to connect contemporary capitalism with the colonial conquests of long ago through the lens of Afro-Futurism.
Lester Julian Merriweather attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and holds a Bachelor's degree from Jackson State University and an MFA from Memphis College of Art.

HYDRA is on view at the Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville Tennessee from March 10 - April 08, 2018 with an opening reception on March 10th at 6pm.