Mercedes is inspired by our connection to the natural world, and to each other. Her love for wild places and adventure has led her to experiences as a deckhand on a pilot boat, a wilderness guide, a fine art and documentary photographer, and traveling for a year around the Pacific Rim. She began her artistic exploration through photography, which she's still enthusiastic about, and when not painting on location, she uses her photographs for painting reference in the studio. In 2007, she received a photography fellowship on an island off the coast of Maine. The painters she met there inspired her to want to see the world the way that they did, to notice subtle colors with an exuberant and finely tuned awareness. Her love of alternative process photography also sparked a desire to explore the space between representational and lyrical imagery in a new way, through paint. She's moved by the beauty, magic and dream-like quality that exist in everyday moments, and aims to express these feelings and observations in her paintings.​
