Merel Jansen studied at the AKI ArtEZ Academy of Art and Design in Enschede and completed her master's in Arnhem in 2017. She started out in textile — portraits drawn with a sewing machine — and found her way back to painting via a detour through Sint-Lucas Ghent. Alongside her practice she works at paint manufacturer Royal Talens as a bridge between the art world and the company.
Her painting departs from colour: in her synaesthetic experience, numbers, people and memories each carry their own colour. Abstract and figurative works deliberately hang side by side — the outer and the inner, the mask and the heart. At DeNode she presented the solo exhibition Merel (2025–2026, curator Kristof Vander Cruyssen).
