Exhibitions

LEIGH MERRILL: GARDEN OF ARTIFICIAL SUGAR, 2023, The Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas.

Leigh Merrill has created a new body of work for her exhibit Garden of Artificial Sugar that stems from her meticulous “photographic” process. Often utilizing thousands of individual photographs, Merrill isolates and then manipulates visual elements of nature before seamlessly stitching or collaging each together to eventually fabricate a unique scene.

Playing off the fallacy of truth via photography, Merrill creates her own fictional realities that appear as brilliantly colored scenes of (un)natural landscapes. The saturated pigments that now suggest trees, leaves, and other natural elements, appear to sit on the surface of the paper. In some areas the artists manually collages cutout elements onto the surface—further confusing the viewer’s perception of the two-dimensional image, and further pushing the limits of what we qualify as a photograph. With Merrill’s work, what originated as photographs of bucolic flora and funga—void of fauna—have transformed into sugary semblances of reality.

"Garden of Artificial Sugar", 2023, The Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas. 

2026, Ten x Ten, Fotofest, Houston, Texas
Ten by Ten 2026 presented the work of artists who participated in FotoFest’s 2024 Meeting Place Portfolio Review and 2025 Meeting Place Virtual Portfolio Review. The exhibition featured images and objects exploring themes of intimacy, family, historical erasure, environment, and pilgrimage, along with contemporary conversations around identity, race, grief, and belonging. While many of the projects speak to one another, there was no overarching theme. Far from weakening the exhibition, this underscored the myriad approaches photographers use to convey their perspectives. Together, the works presented in Ten by Ten 2026 provide insight into each artist’s lived experience and personal interests while also reflecting the broader concerns shaping photography today.

This exhibition is organized by FotoFest Associate Curator Madi Murphy and Exhibitions Manager Chris Wicker.