Berry Meyer

Berry Meyer is a collage artist deeply embedded in the medium of printed images. She holds no hierarchies in her pursuit of the often-discarded paper artefacts of yesteryear. She constantly scours second hand bookshops, thrift stores and flea markets and will cut out, mount and prepare images long before the idea for a particular work begins. Collage is both a tool of her art-making and an integral part of its meaning. Working from her raw image library she constructs thoughtful three-dimensional comments on time, race, sexuality and popular culture.

Meyer recognises herself as an artist living under times of increasing crisis. She responds to this by interrogating and parodying historical representations in the printed material she works within order to find alternative possibilities for representing in the present. Issues of patriarchy, nationalism and religion are deconstructed in her collages through her reimagining of the found images of women, men, children, flora, fauna and landscapes.

By juxtaposing images produced in different times and eras in a single new image, Meyer enables a new dialogue with historical ideas in the present moment. She views her medium as picturing the contemporary through the excess of its existing representations. Her current work focuses particularly on the female trope in fairytales. Her project, ‘After Midnight’ imagines female possibilities in a world after midnight, a narrative space for women to grapple with their agency.

Meyer was born in Namibia. She completed her BA in Design and Masters of Philosophy in Illustration at Stellenbosch University and did Post-Graduate studies at UCT. She currently lives in the Netherlands.

SELECTED PROJECTS & EXHIBITIONS

2019 - 'Wildflowers', group exhibition at Salon 91; '6th International Collage Festival', 'Universal Language', Brussels, Belgium; 'International Exhibition of Collage Art', 'Fresh Cuts', Cheshire, United Kingdom; 'Art Fair', 'Kaskantine', Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2018 - 'Turbine Art Fair', group exhibition in Johannesburg, South Africa; 'Trees Make Forests', group exhibition at Salon 91, Cape Town, South Africa; ‘Art Window: Midnight’ (solo) in Amsterdam, Netherlands; ‘Germain & Guests,’ Rockarchive in Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2017 – ‘Field’ group exhibition at Salon91; ‘Trees Make Forests,’ Salon91; Four Season Art Fair Amsterdam. 2016 – ‘Oracle’, group exhibition at Salon91; This Art Fair Amsterdam, Netherlands; ‘Paper Is You III’, group exhibition at Salon91; ‘Aipathy,’ Cavalli Estate, Cape Town. 2014 – ‘Golden Haze’ group show at Salon91; ‘Paper Is You II’, group exhibition at Salon91; ‘Greatest Hits,’ AVA Gallery, Cape Town.