The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2025 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Meryl Engler
Akron Ohio 44313 United States Home Phone: 7147190457 Website: http://www.merylengler.com
Bio
Meryl Engler grew up in Huntington Beach, California and moved to Akron, Ohio in fall 2019. Meryl attended Syracuse University where she studied sculpture, printmaking, religious studies and history. Next she went to graduate school at University of Nebraska-Lincoln for studio art with an emphasis in printmaking. This is where she developed her love of colorful woodcut prints, often using pattern and repetition. She is inspired by hidden landscapes in our environment and the relationships we form to it and each other. In 2022 she started working at the Morgan Conservatory and learned Eastern and Western papermaking techniques and now incorporates papermaking into her print work. She has shown both nationally and internationally. Meryl seeks to push the limits of printmaking and combine different art mediums in new and exciting ways.
Artist Statement
I am an artist using woodcut to create layered prints and installations that evoke intimate, magical moments within the hidden landscapes of our environment. Woodcut is incredibly physical and energetic, but also requires a level of intimacy and care in carving each mark. The resulting work is subtle and bold, careful and rash, reflecting my own state of being as the artist.
The magical qualities of memory and experience make stories we tell morph into something like folklore through our imaginative recall. I find that I remember things in landscapes. I remember playing in the ocean as a child, watching the light dance along the waves. I remember the piles of fabric and yarn surrounding my mother as she sat to sew quilts, the patterns becoming rolling fields or crashing waves. And now, living in Ohio, I can only imagine what hides behind the vine-covered fences or in the dense underbrush of the forest that seem to grow from nothing each spring. I build these worlds with color woodcut prints in multiple transparent layers, each color informing and affecting the layer that will get put on top. For me this mimics the building or recollection of memories, as each layer can either add clarity or obscure the image. Woodcut also allows for experimentation in color application, texture, and print variation. I have recently started adding figures into my work, creating actual characters to interact with that move throughout the story and landscape.
