IG: @von_winkle Brewery Market Halifax
Von Winkle is not about the artist, it is empathetic art made to spread beauty, confidence, and joy to those who imbibe it.
IG: @von_winkle Brewery Market Halifax
Von Winkle is not about the artist, it is empathetic art made to spread beauty, confidence, and joy to those who imbibe it.
Von Winkle is not just art, it‘s a concept, an idea about how to connect more people with art. It is a new way of thinking about and creating art for everyone. I hope you find a piece that speaks to you, that makes you feel joy, confidence, and brings beauty to your life.
The goal of Von Winkle is to help teach the art of being present and surrounding yourself with things that bring positive energy, colour, joy and beauty to your life. It is about respecting the journey of life and seeing the world differently.
I am Jay Merriott, the creator of Von Winkle and the work. However, Von Winkle should not be viewed as individual pieces of art, rather it is a body of work that incorporates everything I’ve learned on my journey into works of art that are created to help you feel. I started my journey with crayons and coloured pencils as soon as I could hold them. Even though I’ve been making art as long as I can remember, I was always told that art is not a stable career and was pushed to “get a real job.” Because of this I became a clinical counselor with one overarching focus, to help others feel more enriched, empowered, and ultimately live a happier life. This focus has stayed with me and greatly impacts the art being made.
Counseling taught me a lot about myself and others, however, I still felt compelled to continue my journey and make my impact in a different field, the business field. I found myself working for a Fortune 100 company where I was able to take what I learned as a counselor and help engineer and foster greater client relationships via empathy and understanding. After years of watching the world become more divided and isolated, I began feeling unable to make any substantive change… and then I woke up. At that point I decided it was time to chase the dream I had as a child and to create the world I envisioned. That was when Von Winkle was born.
The art of Von Winkle is energetic, vibrant, confident, and above all fun. I intend to fulfil this vision by creating great art that is accessible to everyone. Life is a journey and all the paths that you go down teach you something unique that you carry with yourself indefinitely. My art combines everything I’ve learned throughout my life and applies that knowledge to every piece I create.
Many artists work hard to express themselves to the world, I work hard to reflect the beauty I see in the world and others back onto canvas in a way that the viewer can actually feel without overthinking. I intend to make something new, something that harkens to my heroes throughout art history while awakening the child within us all. In an often hectic, divisive, and insular world it is important to learn from the child within us all. To do this we must learn to be playful, curious, courageous, open, and empathetic enough to see the wonder and awe that is right in front of us. If we can learn to see the world like a child, we can hope for and participate in making a better future.
Von Winkle is an amalgamation of styles, genres, mediums, and experiences that have been accumulated over a lifetime of learning. I have two art degrees, a masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, and am licensed in several business fields. Throughout my artistic academic pursuits I studied architecture, design, art history, I created sculpture, jewelry, ceramics, but felt most drawn to conceptual art.
Von Winkle, at its heart is a conceptual and performative art piece, a body of work that allows people to feel the intent of the artist, thus helping them feel connected with the work. The concept uses symbols and iconography often associated with fashion brands but also harkens to hieroglyphs and motifs often explored through our collective history. This iconography is used to unify the work as a constantly growing, evolving body of work that is accessible to everyone.
Every experience I’ve had as a professional and an artist has led to a new style that I call “Trivialism”. The goal of trivialism is knowledge translation, the ability to condense a lot into a little, to take something enormous or unattainable and make it trivial and thus easy to consume. My style is continually shaped by this idea. Pablo Picasso once said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child”. This is at the heart of trivialism. How can a painting encourage play if the artist does not play when creating it? How can a painting instill confidence without the artist using confident, bold, expressive gestures? How can art help people feel if the artist isn’t feeling when they make the work? These questions and meditations inspire every piece I create.
I am inspired by everything! The world is all connected and inspiration can be found in anything and anyone If you have enough empathy to listen and learn. I became a counselor because I was inspired to help people. Through this experience, I was inspired by my clients and realized that we all have the tools to change ourselves if we are brave enough and humble enough to seek it. I then went into business after being inspired to make a change in what I saw as a cold, heartless field by proving that empathy helps you listen and solve problems which creates better working relationships, ultimately increasing profits and improving consumer experiences. I am now inspired to change the way people consume and interact with art by creating a new style that is inspired by everything I’ve learned on my journey thus far.
I use techniques and ideas pioneered from the greats throughout art history and condense them into one style with the goal of showing people that they already have everything they need to be experts at understanding art. Ultimately, I am inspired to help create a future where art is as essential as air, where children see that they can make a career out of being an artist and that their work has value, and to make great art accessible to everyone.
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