Merric Brettle
Psychopomp 3 – Surface Tension
July 31 – August 22, 2026
Catalogue Merric Brettle Psychopomp 3 – Surface Tension
Psychopomp 3 – Surface Tension presents a new body of work by Melbourne-based artist Merric Brettle, exploring how we experience an increasingly image-saturated world.
Drawing on collected and remade imagery, Brettle’s exhibition reflects an ongoing process of observing, analysing and reinterpreting the visual information that surrounds us. The works move between two interconnected approaches: Pattern Finding, which investigates the images we encounter every day, and Reflection, which considers how these images shape our understanding of ourselves and the world.
Central to this investigation is Brettle’s experience of living and studying in Tokyo during the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Immersed in Japan’s highly mediated urban environment, he encountered a visual culture defined by the sensory intensity of game centres, pachinko parlours, shopping arcades and streets illuminated by neon signage. Saturated colour, abstract imagery, rhythmic patterns, glossy surfaces and the relentless layering of visual information became part of his visual vocabulary. These experiences continue to inform his practice, not as subjects to be depicted, but as a way of understanding how surfaces communicate, seduce and obscure meaning.
Within Psychopomp 3 – Surface Tension, the notion of surface becomes more than a physical condition. Like the reflective facades, illuminated screens and commercial displays of the contemporary city, Brettle’s works operate as sites of continual negotiation between image and object, depth and appearance, attraction and interpretation. Their polished surfaces draw the viewer in while simultaneously resisting fixed meaning, inviting a slower and more attentive encounter with the visual world.
Working across formal and conceptual abstraction, Brettle transforms familiar visual motifs into layered compositions that encourage slow looking and personal interpretation. Rather than offering fixed meanings, the works invite viewers to discover their own connections through the interplay of image, material and title.
Psychopomp 3 – Surface Tension considers how meaning is constructed in a contemporary culture where images increasingly mediate our experience of reality, asking us to look beyond the immediacy of the surface and consider the complex ways images shape perception.
Merric has maintained a sustained engagement with the arts over the past three decades, with an extensive exhibition history spanning institutional, commercial and independent spaces across Australia and Asia. His work has been presented at venues including Terajima Kashiwa, Omotesando Garo Tokyo, Neu Contemporary Bangkok, Cartel Bangkok, Genkan Gallery Tokyo, The Japanese Consulate Melbourne, Brenda May Sydney, Peloton Sydney, Blindside Melbourne, Deutscher & Hackett Melbourne, Block Projects and NKN Melbourne.
A recipient of the Monbusho (Japanese Government) Research Scholarship, Merric holds multiple degrees, including Master of Visual Art degrees from Tokyo University of the Arts and Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. His practice has been shaped by an ongoing investigation into cultural exchange, with a particular focus on artistic dialogue across the Asia-Pacific region. Through both curatorial and artistic projects, he has developed significant Japan–Australia exchanges since the early 2000s, followed by Thailand–Australia exchange initiatives throughout the 2010s.
