Georgia Merton

I was drawn to the dream-like ethereal illustrative view of reliving childhood in Georgia’s artwork, they encompass those feelings of long hot days, with nothing to do, in the haze of the laziness we feel as the sun lingers on water reflecting and flickering. That nostalgia of the exploration of the everyday of innocence and the investigation of the new, she resonates with the concepts of happiness of being at peace when the world feels idyllic. She captivates us by traversing the idea of memories of all that is perfect amidst the joy of outdoor life on blissfully perfect days. Her artworks are a combination of the photographs of her subjects unposed in isolated surroundings and then transferred to printed cyanotypes, creating an illusion of a washed-out or overexposed light, that lingers with a stylised composition that somehow looks accidental. The photography is evocative of the observational realities of Juergen Teller’s images, in what appears as everyday or ordinary, or Sally Mann’s representations of the emotional innocence of childhood combined with the ethereal eccentricity reminiscent of Corrinne Day’s compositions. The stunning Prussian blue hues enhance the accentuating nuances of the positivity and dreaminess, that lingers there even within her photographic images of landscapes of mountain ranges and free-flying birds in her wildlife artworks.

Born and raised in London, Georgia’s family tree has a legacy of artists, her aunt is an abstract painter, who took Georgia to a plethora of exhibitions when she was young, her father a ceramist and her great uncle a portrait painter. At school, she took art A-levels, at first she was interested in fashion and textiles, and she started an art foundation in Bristol, however, she suffered from glandular fever during her course, and during this period she became interested in and explored photography. She then embarked on a three-year video production degree, followed by a career, making videos, with a keen interest in documentaries. Post graduation she worked as a photographer and videographer for a French ski company. Georgia describes the pressure of filming, editing and directing herself, and keeping up with all the changing technologies, working as a bit of an all-rounder. She additionally worked, illustrating chalk pastel dog portraits on the side to earn a bit of extra cash.

Film work transcended into Fine Art, she tells me, she recalls filming a documentary on a group of artists titled Human Nature, describing the pretty and eye-catching images and how this influenced her, this was the beginning of the basis of her work, the aesthetic, Georgia explains. A friend of hers suggested a sculpture course, but it was printmaking that was Georgia’s interest, specifically woodcut, linocut and photopolymer etching, that she started working on in the print studio. She used various studious in London, and one piece was accepted into the Royal Academy, in 2019. This inspired Georgia to continue, however during the pandemic, all the print studios were closed down, and this is when Georgia started experimenting with Cyanotype. “People generally don’t know how cyanotypes are made” Georgia explains, so she researched how they work and started making them from home.

We talk about her mountain art, and Georgia describes how she is always in awe when up a mountain, looking and taking images. During the pandemic, she lived on the Canary Islands with her children, “It was sort of by accident” she explains, they went on holiday for Christmas, “and then everything went into total lockdown”. She could work from anywhere, as a freelancer, and three months ended up being six months. We started to talk about our childhood memories and how they influenced us, and she recalls living in Italy as a young child for a few years. Her father owned a music label, and they moved to Italy with the family when she was nine. Georgia and her siblings were plunged into the deep end in an Italian-speaking school for three years. She describes how she can still remember all the details of her surroundings of the journey on the bus to school, living in the countryside surrounded by nature, how all this influenced her, and how she subsequently understood the importance of travel. This inspired her to move to Barcelona during her third term at University, she made friends and still visits regularly going back there every summer, she is pretty fluent in Spanish and conversational in French.

Georgia explains how she always felt more European than British and how Brexit affected her. She illustrates how she finds travel inspires her work, capturing a moment, seeing something beautiful in the conventional, whether a moment is good or mundane, it’s about noticing things happening at a moment in time, these are her inspirations she explains, and knowing how to capture all those brief moments. We talk about inspirational artists, and she pauses and thinks for a while about her favourite artist, “Dali!” she exclaims “The unusual with what he is trying to say”. She talks about narratives in her work, and whether it’s intentional, “Within all of them they have their own narrative” she explains. The idea of concept art comes up as a topic, and Georgia recalls how she has always enjoyed it, and how she wanted to go into advertising at one point. I then asked her, what is really behind her work and what she wants to convey. Joy! “If I can make a piece of work, that someone wants to buy because it brings them joy, then its joy” she explains. “It’s inspiring to bring pleasure to people, through art” she exclaims. “If you look at any image, there are thousands of thoughts that go through your mind” she emphasises, and how an image will trigger a memory in someone.

We chat about the challenges in the creative process, Georgia describes her current challenge, creating larger and larger images, and the uncertainty of whether it will work or not. She smiles when she tells me she creates her dark room in her home, “Actually in the children’s bedroom when they are away staying at their dad’s house.” It is this, that as artists, there is the desire to create and overcome technical obstacles in order to express what we see, feel and understand and allow an observer to interpret what they see within their own free will. “There are no boundaries and constraints in art” Georgia explains. Georgia also paints with charcoal, however, most of her work that she sells is her photographic cyanotypes, she tells me. She has exhibited her work at International Art Fairs across the world, London, New York and this year includes, these major cities and Hong Kong as well. 

Interview: Antoinette Haselhorst