Merion Estes

Raised in Southern California, Merion Estes is known for mixed media paintings using fabric collage, various paints and photo downloads to depict dystopian landscapes. She became active in Los Angeles feminist organizations in the ‘70s, including Womanspace and the Woman’s Building, working with Judy Chicago, Faith Wildling, Judith Simonian, and Nancy Youdelman. She was an influential member of the Pattern & Decoration movement as well, opening the visual arts to designs and colors then thought too frivolous—and feminine—to be valuable. 

Estes earned a BFA from the University of New Mexico Albuquerque in 1970 and an MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder in 1972. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019 and a Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2022. Her works are in the collections of the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.