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Lara Merrett

Lara Merrett

MRes Candidate
Arts, Design & Architecture
School of Art & Design

Website: https://www.laramerrett.com/

Email: lara.merrett@unsw.edu.au

Supervisors: Izabela Pluta, Fernando do Campo, Adriana Verges

Lara Merrett is an artist working across expanded painting, textiles and installation. Merrett's work is known for its immersive, process-driven engagement with materiality, as well as a sustained investigation into the relationship between painting and the natural world.

Merrett's current research draws on collaboration with marine scientists at Project Restore and Operation Crayweed, developing pigments from the long-spined sea urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii, an overabundant species whose harvesting is necessary to restore ecological balance and support the regeneration of Sydney's marine ecosystems. Working with the urchin as both material and catalyst, Merrett is developing the concept of "urchin thinking," an approach that takes the urchin's own logic of movement, aggregation and slow transformation as a method for the studio itself, shaping how works are made. Her term "pest-kin" extends this thinking, reframing the urchin as both ecological disruptor and climate refugee, and drawing on ecofeminist theorists including Haraway, Plumwood and Neimanis to trouble the boundary between invasive species and displaced kin. By extension, she considers the relational implications offered by a practice centred on ecology, extraction, restoration and care.

Merrett holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Arts (Painting), both from UNSW. Merrett has shown extensively in Australia and internationally, with works exhibited at Sullivan+Strumpf (NSW, Vic), Jan Murphy Gallery (Qld), UQ Art Museum (Qld), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (NSW), Artspace (NSW), Shoalhaven Regional Gallery (NSW), Cat Street Gallery (Hong Kong), Sumer (New Zealand), Karen Woodbury Gallery (Vic), Swab Art Fair (Spain) and Domaine Chandon de Briailles (France). Merrett is a finalist in the 2026 Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, has been a finalist in the Valerie Taylor Art Prize for Ocean Advocacy, is a previous winner of the Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize (2022), and has undertaken residencies at Bundanon Trust, The Ethics Centre, Gang Gang Residency (Yuin Country) and The Corridor Project (Cowra).
  • Ecofeminism
  • Expanded painting
  • Natural and marine-derived materials
  • Ecology, extraction, restoration and care
  • Collaborative practice

Non traditional research outputs

  • "Stilling." 2026. Solo Exhibition, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.
  • "Shoalhaven Memorial Hospital." 2025–2026. Permanent Public Art Commission, Nowra, NSW.
  • "fathom and feet." 2024. Solo Exhibition, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.
  • "Harvest." 2024. Group Exhibition, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.
  • "TERRA II." 2024. Curated Exhibition, Domaine Chandon de Briailles, Burgundy, France.
  • "Barlow Street Forest." 2023. Permanent Public Art Commission (with Dirt Witches), City of Sydney.
  • "tissu tissue." 2023. Solo Exhibition, Sullivan+Strumpf, Melbourne.
  • "TERRA." 2023. Curated Exhibition, Domaine Chandon de Briailles, Burgundy, France.
  • "By my side walking." 2022. Solo Exhibition, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.
  • "Distant Future." 2022. Fashion Collaboration with Romance Was Born, Fall 2022 Collection.
  • "Seventeen Days." 2021. Solo Exhibition, Sumer, Tauranga, New Zealand.
  • "Petrichor." 2021. Solo Exhibition, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane.
  • "Flip Side." 2019. Solo Exhibition, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane.
  • "High Stakes." 2018. Solo Exhibition, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane.
  • "Lady Luck." 2018. Solo Exhibition, Tristian Koenig, Melbourne.
  • "High-Rise." 2018. Solo Exhibition, COMA Gallery, Sydney.
  • "This Is Not a Love Song." 2017. Installation, Carriageworks and Barangaroo, Sydney Contemporary. Curated by Rachel Kent and Megan Robson.
  • "Casus Fortuitus." 2016. Solo Exhibition, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne.
  • "In my nature." 2015. Solo Exhibition, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong.
  • "The shape of things." 2015. Solo Exhibition, Olsen Irwin Gallery, Swab Art Fair, Barcelona.
  • "Wonder and Dread." 2020. Group Exhibition, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, NSW.
  • "Paint me in." 2018. Commission, Bella Room, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Publications and selected press

  • Gibson, Prue. "Fathom and Feet." Sullivan+Strumpf Magazine, Oct/Nov 2024.
  • Mudie Cunningham, Daniel. "Holding and Being Held." Art Collector, no. 102, Oct/Dec 2022.
  • Glass, Alexie. "Lara Merrett: By My Side, Walking." Interview. Sullivan+Strumpf Magazine, Oct/Nov 2022.
  • Hill, Wes. "Superposition of Three Types." frieze.com, 6 April 2018.
  • Wolifson, Chloé. "Casus Fortuitus." Catalogue essay, Karen Woodbury Gallery, 2017.
  • Kirpalani, Amita. "The Thought Fox." Catalogue essay for Doublethink, Karen Woodbury Gallery, 2014.
  • Martin-Chew, Louise. "Romanticism and a Gothic Sensibility." Australian Art Review, 2010.
  • Nainby, Byrony. "Beyond Imagination into the Abyss." Catalogue essay, Latrobe Regional Gallery, 2009.
  • Byrne, Lisa. "Soft Rock." Catalogue essay, Karen Woodbury Gallery, 2007.
  • Crawford, Ashley. "Against the Amnesiac Lifestyle Showroom." The Age, 11 September 2006.