Textured, no text

Art is not a competition to me," says Naples painter Susan Merritt.

COURTESY PHOTOS Naples painter Susan Merritt invites investigation, interaction in her latest exhibit at Space 39. "It's a way of life. It's what you are. It's how you are.

"It's not about following the trends."

Merritt's new paintings, currently on exhibit at Space39 in downtown Fort Myers, demonstrate her belief in not following the trends: no beach scenes, no palm trees, no shells, no wildlife. No traditional paintings done with an eye to appeal to the least common denominator. Merritt's work invites investigation, interaction.

Her textured, abstract works look like walls that have been painted multiple times and covered over with posters now partially torn away. There's a sense of history to them, a hint of things beneath the paint.

For example, in "Blue: Untitled," a small 10" x 8" blue-toned painting, little patches of red peek through blueishwhite paint like tiny poppies under snow. Merritt explains that she painted over Chinese rice paper that had a red floral pattern.

"I like the idea of looking at something and you try to figure out what is behind there," Merritt says. "You just want to touch it. I don't know what it is about texture, but I just love it. I've used ashes, sand; I've put all sorts of stuff into my paint to try to get a little texture. Then I look at it and say, 'That looks interesting, let me try this. How can I make it a little more gritty?'"

She's painted on cardboard, rice paper and tape to make her work more textured.

In her current work she's started drawing straight, horizontal lines in graphite across the width of each painting.

"It's a grid, well, not exactly a grid, but lines that go on top of the painting," she says. "In a sense I feel they're pulling together the chaos behind it. The paint is very abstract. I like to use the lines to make order out of the chaos behind it."

She just stumbled upon doing that, she says, then realized that Agnes Martin and Louise Bourgeois, whom she names as influences, used grids in their paintings.

"So it's really nothing new," she says, though agrees that in her work it's "a different concept, a different approach. I didn't set out to do them," she says.

"I do play around with surface texture. I collage a lot of things, hide things underneath the paint."

The horizontal lines also suggest written paper, especially in "Blue: Untitled," where the lines are just the right thickness and distance from each other to echo those on composition paper.

When that's suggested to Merritt, she says, "I incorporated text into some of my other paintings. It's definitely not farfetched... Maybe these are lines that need to be filled. I'll have to think about this."

Merritt grew up in a creative family: her dad is a furniture designer and her mom is "a closet writer." Merritt would go into work with her dad sometimes and he'd seat her at his drafting board.

"His designs are very technical," she says. "His work is very detail-oriented." Her mother's work, on the other hand, "is very emotional and from the heart, very expressive.

"Growing up in a creative household has its moments," she adds. "My mother always says, 'Get a real job.' My dad goes, 'Sometimes the road will take you in another way.'"

COURTESY PHOTO Merritt Merritt drew as a kid, but didn't purchase her first set of paints until she was 20. She had met a Brazilian painter in the Carolinas who told her, "You need to paint."

She started painting on her own, then took art classes at Edison College and Florida Gulf Coast University. In 1997 at Edison, she received an Emerging Artist Award for a drawing.

"I had artists I would meet who would say, 'Don't go to art school. Just stay in your studio and paint. That's the school,'" she recalls.

She's been affiliated with Space39 since they opened.

"I like Space39. They have a great eye for art," she says. "They have a good space, and they have an eye for choosing the artists. I am very honored to be a part of that."

In addition to Space39, Merritt's had work exhibited at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples and at the Arts for ACT gallery in downtown Fort Myers.

She's received good feedback on her new series she says.

"I'm still working on paintings in the series," she says, "experimenting with some rice paper, doing paintings on that paper. I have a lot of ideas running around in me. It's really in the baby stages -- these are the first paintings in the series. I'm just getting into it. I'm just starting to have an idea of what it might be."

Merritt works a day job, painting during the other hours in a studio in her home. Though she has a 9 to 5 job to pay the rent and put food on the table, "I consider myself a full-time painter," she says. "I just want to paint.

"I paint because I have to paint - that's what I am."

If you go

>>Where: Space39, 39 Patio de Leon, downtown Fort Myers

>>Summer hours: 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Tuesday - Thursday and 5 - 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday

>>Information: Call 634-4940 or go to www. spacethirtynine.com