Grapevine Gallery OKC

Gerald Merfeld has, for the last ten years, lived and painted amidst the elk and hay meadows of the Wet Mountain Valley at the base of Colorado's Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Merfeld's rural Midwest roots, love of nature, and appreciation for simple, everyday beauties are affectionately expressed in his paintings and drawings. His early stint as studio assistant to the master illustrator and muralist Dean Cornwell, and immersion in the vital New York community of professional illustrators of the late 1950s, continually inform Merfeld's work. Alternating between the precise, illustrative draftsmanship of monochromatic conté drawings and the lush

application of oils in a broad palette, Merfeld probes the web of visual information, detail and objective representation provided by the artist, and what is supplied or inferred by the viewer to give his experience of a "picture" reference to a world he sees on his own. While the subject matter of Merfeld's work is typically serene, it continually invites the viewer to discover, consider and savor problems of perception and translation encountered and solved by the artist.

Late Apples oil, 16 x 20, $2400	Red Bear Falls oil, 24 x 32, $6000	Heading Home oil, 24 x 36, $7000
My House oil, 16 x 14, $2700	Jack O'Lantern or Pie oil, 24 x 16, $2700	Searching conte, 23 x 29, $4500
Down to the Seashore oil, 12 x 16, $1600	Winter Sun and Shadows oil, 16 x 20, $2400	Summer Afternoon conte, 23 x 29, $4500
		Winter on its Way oil, 12 x 24, $2100