Merrilee Challiss

The Begending, 2021

Gouache, Watercolor on Paper

14 x 20 inches; framed: 14.5 x 20.2 inches

Courtesy of the artist

www.merrileechalliss.com, @merilka

Merrilee Challiss (b 1971, Cleveland, Ohio) is a multi-media artist who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama. She received her BA in Studio Arts from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1994, an MFA in Sculpture from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2000, and a M Ed in Visual Arts in 2022 (UAB). She was a Post-Graduate Apprentice at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in 2000, and was a member of the artist-run co-operative gallery, Vox Populi, in Philadelphia, PA. She co-owner of BottleTree Cafe, a music venue, cafe, bar, and event center in Birmingham, Alabama from 2006-2015 (www.bottletree.com). She is the current ED at Studio By The Tracks, a non-profit art studio that provides materials, studio space, and facilitated studio time to adult and youth artists on the autism spectrum (www.studiobythetracks,org). Over the years, Merrilee has worked as a window decorator in Berlin, worked on a few murals of endangered species for the Center for Biological Diversity, taught drawing and foundation courses as an adjunct at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, as well as teaching art to all age groups. She received a "Window of Opportunity Award" by the Leeway Foundation in 2000, an Alabama State Council of the Arts grant in 2005, was included in the Juror's Pick for the 2015 New American Paintings, Southeast Edition. She has exhibited her work from Portland, Oregon to Phnom Penh and is in many private collections around the globe.