Mercer

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Mercer Tullis is a painter born in Lower Manhattan, where he has spent most of his life. He is an intuitive realist depicting figurative scenes. His subjects are often people in moments of introspection or isolation, themes that are growing parts of contemporary culture. He was born in 1994 and raised by his two parents, Cynthia Woodie and Marcus Tullis, whose joint business, called "Light and Form", dealt in sculpture services and still-life photography. Growing up in a commercially zoned loft in a family of artists, Mercer developed an early affinity for tools and their uses, completing his first artwork in 2003.

Mercer began formally studying at the Art Students League in 2013, taking drawing classes under Robert Cenedella, whose studio was across the hall from the loft he grew up in. Soon after beginning at the Art Students League, Mercer began assisting artists such as Neil Jenny and Julian Schnabel.

In 2015, Mercer began to specialize in graphite painted on gessoed plywood. He fabricates all of his own frames at his studio in Soho. These pieces were most recently featured in the “American Realism Today” exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art. His work can currently be found in the personal collections of Neil Jenney and Larry Gagosian.