Against the Grain: The Natural Progression of Artist and Muralist Cinzah Merkens

Whether it be our isolation from the rest of the world and hunger to jut above the pack, or the humble quality of calling things how we see them, New Zealand is full of sparkling individuals taking the reins and living on their own terms. With that in mind, and in partnership with Budweiser and Monster Valley, we're delving into the lives of local leaders of independent thought, who make up the rules as they go and use their creativity to produce world class original ideas.

The résumé of Cinzah Merkens reads like that of a creative demigod. The Auckland-born, Napier-based go-getter is one of the country's busiest artists and muralists, ticking off everything from event coordination to conservation work, wall painting, commercial illustration, countless exhibitions— or as he humbly puts it "all sorts really". Not entirely restricted to the lower Pacific, he spends a good chunk of his time jetting across foreign waters to exhibit and work on large scale murals. The past five years alone have seen him check in to Mexico, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Canada, and the U.S — where he recently contributed to a mammoth two story canvas.

Closer to home, Cinzah helped bring the acclaimed PangeaSeed festival to New Zealand. Through art, science, and creativity, the initiative helps connect communities with the ocean. This year's event saw 29 artists descend on Napier for ten days of cultural environmental excursions and five days of wall painting.

A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Given his mother is an artist, it's only natural that Cinzah followed a creative route. "In my upbringing I was always exposed to art materials and that environment. My mother was a freelancer working in advertising, so she had her home studio while we were growing up. I was often under her desk drawing and scribbling and that was very encouraged from a young age. I guess I just had a larger array of materials to play with and never stopped drawing, really."

The constant painting and drawing eventually transitioned into art school, though it wasn't until one year deep that he realised it wasn't the route he wanted to take. In the process of cross-crediting over to graphic design, a life-changing accident put him "on the right track." A mishap on the sand dunes in Gisborne resulted in a broken vertebrae and seven weeks to recover in the hospital at the start of his study year. The down time gave him an opportunity to fill in sketch books and simply think.

He bounced back with an attitude that "life is too short to not do what you want to do". The accident was a blessing in disguise that knocked him back on par to focus on his own art practise and exhibit work.

A NATURAL PROGRESSION

Something he calls "a natural progression" surfaces several times in Cinzah's timeline. Exhibiting in galleries came through community art spaces, wall painting grew out of street painting, and working in the commercial illustration arena translated valuable management skills to his art practise.

"As soon as I started working with the can that was a whole other medium I fell in love with straight away. That was a big game changer for me, changing up mediums there and seeing how you can apply that to your work."

Weighing up commerce and creativity, Cinzah admits that while he "never properly fitted into commercial illustration", there's lot he learnt from the business side. "Instead, go to Business School. You need to be able to manage your practise. There's always going to be a commercial aspect to what you do if you want to do it full time and take it seriously."

On the flip side of natural progression, Cinzah also carved his path by living on his own terms, "I like calling my own shots of where to go and seeing where that's going to take me."

LEARN FROM YOUR ENVIRONMENT

While not living by one specific philosophy, Cinzah is bursting with thought-provoking anecdotes. As well as following the straightforward process of being respectful to others and his environment, he is always trying to push his personal boundaries to move forward creatively.

"I think the whole experience as an artist and the way you go about life is its own journey, you're constantly learning things from new environments and that effects your work and how you grow as a person and as an artist. I just want to create aesthetically pleasing work that makes people think."

His initial creative inspiration came from the vitality of city living, soaking up "the chaotic grind of textures and grimy wall spaces and surfaces and that sort of energy of that bustle." With maturity and having kids he admits that his angle of inspiration has definitely shifted. "Nature has always been a big element that inspires my work; wildlife and plant life and marine life. Shining a light on different issues to do with the ocean and the environment and society and stuff like that. Just having a poke at things and making people think differently about how they go about the world and how they interact with the environment."

FREE BIRD

That creativity also spills over into his everyday life, and he often finds himself admiring walls as a blank canvas, "It's an itch, it's something that's always been there and it's part of who I am as a person, like my being and my soul. It's like I need to keep painting, I need to keep creating."

When it comes to putting the literal writing on the wall, Cinzah says his drawing style doesn't really follow a lot of traditional rules and he has a lot of freedom and flexibility to play around. "I like to draw with as little reference and planning as possible and just work straight out of the head. I like to feel out the environment I'm working in and find something that fits with that environment and within the context of that environment. Quite often I'll spend a bit of time at the wall and get a feel for it. I might do some drawing there. When it comes to a big wall, I might do a rough sketch to get a feel for the composition, for how it's going to flow in that space."