Marly Merle
She/Her
Scottish Multidisciplinary Artist
Marly Merle’s interdisciplinary practice moves between architectural and bodily landscapes, shaped by sculptural gestures that echo garments, furniture, and structural forms. Through layered combinations, she creates hybrid forms that blur the boundaries of function and fiction. Works invite slow attention, drawing viewers into shifting inner worlds where meaning remains fluid and transformation is a constant.
Employing an intuitive, process-led approach, Marly Merle reconfigures fragments gathered from places with quiet, residual potential. She explores their embedded histories to imagine alternative pasts or speculative futures. Tactile processes like stitching, layering, and joining remain visible, allowing the act of making to reorient materials into forms that feel both fragile and composed.
Awards
2025
Freelands Foundation Fellow at Bath Spa Univeristy
2024
South of Scotland Visual Artist & Craft Maker Award
2024
Selected for New Contemporaries Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy
2023
Upland / Spring Fling
CREATE Scheme
2022
V&A Dundee
Graduate Award
2022
First Class BA Honours Degree in
Fine Art
2022
Alistair Smart Memorial Prize
for Sculpture (Duncan of Jordanstone)
2022
Royal Scottish Academy
Keith Prize for Best Scottish Student
2022
DJCAD MFA Fine Art Prize
Press & Publications
15th April, 2024
Flannelle Magazine
'Transition Edition #38' (photo)
28th March, 2024
The Skinny Magazine
'Double Trouble: RSA New Contemporaries 2024' (photo)
28th May, 2023
Pap Magazine
'Clothes in the Sun' (photo)
27th May, 2023
BBC News
'In pictures: Spring Fling artists throw doors open' (photo)
27th May, 2023
The Scotsman
'Reimagining a 'lost' Landscape' (photo)
27th May, 2023
The National
'Experimental Artist Recreates Lost Landscape' (photo)
March, 2023
GUM Magazine
'Over The Top' (photo)
July, 2022
The Skinny
'The Grand Return' (photo)
29th May, 2022
The Sunday Post
'Jan Patience: From war to weaving… Student art unveiled at Duncan of Jordanstone' (photo)
23rd May, 2022
The Scotsman
'Art review: Degree Show 2022, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee' (photo)
Spring, 2022
GUM Magazine
'CONSUME' (photo)
2021
OUTCAST Zine
'Volume 01' (photo)
Exhibitions
2024
Hidden Door Arts Festival
The Paper Factory, Edinburgh
2024
RSA New Contemporaries
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2024
ReDress Scotland
The Crichton, Dumfries
2023
Members Show
Glasgow Print Studio, Glasgow
2023
L(h)and
Gracefield Art Centre, Dumfries
2023
Over The Top Launch
The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow
2022
Out In The Open
The Federation Gallery, Keiller Centre, Dundee
2022
Duncan of Jordanstone's Degree Show
Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee
2022
RSA Annual Exhibition
The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2022
Project Generator's Member's Show
Project Generator Wellgate, Dundee
2021
Bardennoch
Kirkcudbright Galleries, Dumfries & Galloway
2021
Project Generator's Member's Show
Project Generator Wellgate, Dundee
2020
Passage
Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee
2020
Art & Music Celebration
Flat, Glasgow
2020
Annual Member's Show
Generator Projects, Dundee
2020
It's the Pits
Duncan Of Jordanstone, Dundee
2019
Art Party
Flat Art Party, Dundee
2019
Curated film screening
Duncan Of Jordanstone, Dundee
2019
Studio Jamming
Cooper Gallery, Dundee
2019
End of 1st year Exhibition
1st Year studios at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee
2018
Portfolio Course NQ end of year exhibition
Garment Factory, Glasgow
Instagram: @marlymerle