About me

Dorrell Merritt is a London-based visual artist, writer and publisher. As a visual artist, his practice spans photography, moving-image, graphic design, wheatpasting and text. Themes such as nature, sexuality, isolation, voyeurism, identity, cynicism and the uncanny regularly manifest within and across his work.  As a writer, he produces works across interviews, reviews, essays, poems and short-fiction. Editorially, he has been published by The Guardian, Artforum, ArtReview, Hunger Magazine, Lampoon Magazine, Berlin Art Link, Sang Bleu Magazine, Paper Journal, Twin Magazine, BKN Magazine, Dazed Digital and more. He previously served as a contributor to European photography magazine, Photomonitor (2018-2024). As a poet, he has self-published a number of collections both digitally and physically. He is currently in the process of working on his debut short-fiction collection. Additionally, he creates contemporary artefacts and printed matter by way of personal imprints SEED Atelier and SEED Editions. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of photographic conversation series, SEED Monograph and tattoo conversation series, Quo Vadis.

PostsProjectsExperienceTeam

• Five things I learned from cold-pitching arts and culture magazines for a year...
• "Photographer Marc Krause captured the beauty of Frankfurt’s international ‘non-place’"— Hunger Magazine.
• 'Within the series, I was essentially like the producer. The photographer was dismissed.' Dorothy Sing Zhang on series: 'Like Someone Alive'

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Projects

• 'King, Queen, Knave': Gregory Halpern for The Guardian— Interview (2024)After 13 years of writing, 9 years of freelancing around day-jobs and 6 years of pitching, I am pleased to present my first piece for The Guardian— an interview with photographer Gregory Halpern. Speaking with me ahead of the release of his new photobook King, Queen, Knave, with independent publisher MACK Books, Halpern discusses the issues surrounding leaving home, his inspiration in Chris Killip and his life-long love of observing people. The interview can be read on The Guardian's website,
• 'Manual Labour': Hannah Perry for Artforum— Interview (2024)After seven years of trying (and failing), I was commissioned by Artforum to interview British artist Hannah Perry for her exhibition 'Manual Labour' at Newcastle's Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art. You can read the interview that I worked on with Hannah in the link below: https://www.artforum.com/columns/hannah-perry-manual-labour-557292/
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  'Back Against The Wall' (2023)Back, Against The Wall is a public, ephemeral, solo exhibition of images by Dorrell Merritt, taking place in Shoreditch, East London, from the 11th of June, until an undetermined date. The title, steeped in apathy and cynicism, channels the perils and pitfalls of being an artist with a practice over a decade old, yet remaining reliant on day-jobs, simultaneously making reference to the physical act of wheatpasting within London’s streets, finding oneself again in positions of both pressure and
• 'Champagne For Breakfast' (Meyhem Lauren x DJ Muggs x Madlib)— Album Review (2023).A snap review of Queens, New York native rapper, Meyhem Lauren's collaborative album with hip-hop veteran producers, DJ Muggs and Madlib, Champagne For Breakfast. After pitching this review unsuccessfully to Pitchfork, I didn't want it to be wasted, so here it is. All in all, it's around an hour of work, and new territory for me, but I might work on some others in the near future. You can listen to the album here, and buy it here.
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  'Lithos'— Dorrell Merritt x Raphael Kadid (2023)'Transposed consciousness and memories, yawning, sombre as thunder; droves of drones and stony sentinels, meticulous and limber'. Lithos (2023) is a collaborative project between Swiss-french designer and architect Raphael Kadid, and London-based visual artist and writer, Dorrell Merritt, exploring the trifecta of science-fiction, literature and design. Using the shadowy form of Kadid’s editioned lamp Oblago (2021) as the focal point for the poster-based collaboration, alongside an excerpt fro
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  'Moriyama at Hamiltons'— Poetry Collection (2022).Moriyama at Hamiltons, is my fourth physical poetry collection to date. Composed over the course of ten months, Moriyama at Hamiltons explores what it means to live in the shadow of a global event; inspired by travel, swayed by pessimism, grounded by nostalgia, softened by the imagination and empowered by a desire to push onward, regardless. Experimenting further with approaches rooted in the conceptual, building on a life-long affinity with nature and relaying stories of tragedy, desire and is

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Work history

Creative Direction, Art Direction & Graphic DesignSEED Atelier
Jun 2019London, United KingdomPart Time
In 2019 I created SEED Atelier as an outlet for my personal projects, concerning creative direction, art direction and graphic design, and the ways in which they can manifest by way of contemporary, visual art, ephemera and unique objects.
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Arts WriterVarious
Jan 2011London, United KingdomFreelance
I work as a freelance arts writer, conducting interviews, reviews and essays for a number of independent publications online and in print such as as The Guardian, Artforum, Hunger Magazine, Berlin Art Link, Paper Journal, Twin Magazine, BKN Magazine, Dazed Digital and more.

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Skills

• Adobe Indesign
• Adobe Photoshop
• Copywriting Editorial
• Arts Writing
• Photography
• 120 Film
• Poetry
• Visual Art