Jan Murphy Gallery is pleased to present, ‘Petrichor’ the new exhibition from Lara Merrett.

Lara Merrett’s colour-rich abstract paintings reveal an intimate and intuitive approach to painting. Working on a large-scale, Merrett apposes blocks of velvety dark colour with transparent, amorphous pools of acrylic and ink. These delicately layered paintings evoke senses beyond the purely visual, and hint at connections to memory and place.

‘Petrichor’ is Lara Merrett’s fifth solo exhibition at Jan Murphy Gallery. In 2018, Merrett was commissioned for the Jackson Bella Room at the MCA Sydney. The immersive installation invited visitors to touch, move and interact with her brightly coloured paintings that were suspended from the ceiling. In 2019, Merrett was commissioned by The University of Queensland Art Museum to produce High Stakes a two-part project beginning with a temporary outdoor studio residency and culminating with a large installation inside the museum. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the University of New South Wales, Artbank, Macquarie Bank, Sofitel Hotel and UBS.

Image credit: Lara Merrett, Fossil me tender, 2021, acrylic and ink on linen, 151.0 x 117.0 cm (detail)