Watson Mere is an award-winning visual and performance artist whose work has been exhibited internationally over the past nine years. His art has been featured in galleries, museums, and prominent venues including the Barclays Center (Brooklyn, NY), Venice Art Gallery (Venice, Italy), The Oculus at the World Trade Center (New York, NY), Gracie Mansion Conservatory (New York, NY), Norman Rea Gallery (York, United Kingdom), and The Africa Center (Harlem, NY).

Mere is the recipient of numerous honors, including the 2024 Artist-in-Residence at Haiti Cultural Exchange, the 2022 Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program, and the 2023 Frederieke Sanders Taylor StudioProjects Fund. In 2018, he was awarded a Citation of Honor in the Arts by the District Attorney of Kings County.

His work and practice have been featured in major publications and media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Hyperallergic, Esquire, Artsy, NPR, News 12 New York, Philly Magazine, Broadway World, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Colossal, GlobeNewswire, Nylon, C-Suite Quarterly, and others.

Mere holds a B.A. in Business Administration (2011) and a Master of Business Administration M.B.A. (2015) from Florida A&M University. Born and raised in Belle Glade, Florida, to Haitian immigrant parents, he currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and maintains a studio at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts in Times Square, Manhattan.

I view my work as a window, one that reflects the viewer’s own experiences or beliefs, or offers a glimpse into worlds they may have never seen or understood. My aim is to create pieces that resist passive observation and instead demand engagement. Each work invites viewers to pause, reflect, and question.

My creative practice is rooted in the cultural complexities of the African diaspora. I am driven by a desire to give visual voice to those long silenced by society, a mission born from my own early voicelessness. As a child, I was unable to speak until the age of five and began creating art at the age of two as a means of communication. This inability to speak heightened my sense of observation and taught me how to translate emotion and perception into visual form. Art has been my first and most enduring language.

At thirteen, I discovered Microsoft Paint, an early digital tool that, alongside acrylics, oils, pastels, and other media, has become central to my storytelling. Through these tools, I build symbolically layered compositions where themes of Black identity, contemporary life, and ancestral memory intersect.

My work is both vivid and intentional. Bold color palettes attract the eye, while layered narratives rooted in African symbology and Black cultural memory invite deeper contemplation. Each piece is a visual griot, a silent storyteller, whispering something different to every viewer, yet echoing a shared history and humanity.