Merle Harley

Merle Harley is a Canadian printmaker and artist, she studies fine art and art history at Nova Scotia Collage of Art and Design. Using many different types of printmaking techniques she explores and disrupts concepts of nationality, canadian landscape, idealization, violence and colonialism. Though the concepts for most of her work are based in fairly heavy issues, she explores them in a funny, playful way, using combinations of photos, goofy hand drawn images and lots of bright colours. Sometimes her works appear quirky and over the top, using clichés, awkward situations and bad jokes. Humour is a very important part of her work, it allows the viewer to interact with her work in an unpretentious, engaging and approachable way.