Diminishing Conversation Painting

Clayton Merrell grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. He studied painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art, where he earned an MFA in 1995. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant for research and creative work in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1996-97. His work is exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions at: Slow Gallery, Chicago; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC; Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh PA; the A+D Gallery, Chicago; the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua NY. His work is in the collections of the American Embassy in Belmopan, Belize, the Smithsonian Museum, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and numerous private and corporate collections. He was the 2005 Artist of the Year at The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and in 2016 was named Creator-of-the-Year by the Pittsburgh Technology Council. He has received awards and grants from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Skowhegan, The Millay Colony for the Arts, the Blue Mountain Center, the Vermont Studio Center, ProArts, Artists Image Resource, and the Center for the Arts in Society. During 2004-05 he was a fellow at the Roswell Artist-In-Residence Foundation in Roswell, New Mexico. In 2015, the Pittsburgh International Airport completed construction of a 69,000 square foot terrazzo floor image based on his design. He is currently the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.