Showcase Artist Thya Merz

For THYA MERZ of Port Townsend, art is a way of making sense of the world.

"As I create, I explore and attempt to breach the social contradictions of modern daily life — famine in a world of plenty, migrants rebuffed by a nation founded by immigrants, the unending, unbearable casualties of war,” she writes.

“I do not seek to take on these issues directly. Still, making art while considering these realities emboldens me to stay present, to notice, and not turn away.”

Thya, who now paints in the ancient medium of encaustic, studied design and ceramics at the Aarhus Art Academy in Denmark during the early 1970s. There, she learned about art-making as a social responsibility. The understanding of artist-as-integrated-citizen took hold, and continues to inform her thinking about inclusivity and the artist’s life.