Merlin Evans

MA (Dual Hons), PGDip, MAA, PGCHE

Merlin Evans is a multi-disciplinary artist; working as an Illustrator, Scribe, Educator, Writer, and Director of ‘Drawn to Medicine’. She is a Supervisor and Lecturer on Falmouth University’s MA Illustration course, and teaches internationally.

Merlin is autistic, and through her sensory processing disorder (SPD) she invites conversations on how neurodiversity within the arts, can provide innovative approaches to digesting complexity through visual solutions.

Merlin’s practice maps and draws the Anatomy of the Self – the stuff that makes us us. Not just the blood, bones and guts of classical medical textbooks, but also the thoughts, emotions and memories that we house and the stories we explore as a collective community - her artefacts are varied, shaped by the voices and narratives that she is drawn to, and drawing out.

She sees drawing as an act of radical listening, and is committed to using the arts to empower and advocate. Merlin tries to map lived experiences and testimonials - illustrating what it means to have a body and to live in that body.

She completed her four year postgraduate training as a Medical Artist through the Medical Artists’ Education Trust (MAET) in 2019, and was awarded a Pass with Distinction. Training on this prestigious course is via skilled medical artists, surgeons and physicians. Merlin was awarded the Barbers’ Company Award granted by The Worshipful Company of Barbers for two consecutive years (2016 -2017 and 2017-2018) and the Ronald Raven Award (2017-2018) in recognition of her practice in the field of public engagement within Medical Art.

Over the last decade she has worked with some of the largest clients in the arts-health sector in the field of patient & public engagement, including Harley Street Childrens' Hospital, The Wellcome Trust, The Francis Crick Institute, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Royal Free Hospital, St Charles Centre for Health and Wellbeing, UCL, Hunterian Museum of Surgery, The Royal College of Midwives, the Division of Cancer Studies at Kings College and the Global Health Research Group on Neurotrauma.

She has taught Illustration at The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration since 2011. Her work is featured as an example of best practice in 'Illustration: Meeting the Brief' by Bloomsbury Publishing (2014), in addition to appearing in ‘The Best of Contemporary British Illustration Annual’ (2012).

Merlin believes pictures have the power to make thinking, working and communicating easier for everyone. She is passionate about using her skills to support and empower others, via co-design collaborations with audiences across the world.

She is currently Medical Artist 'Performer in Residence'; at The Centre for Performance Science.

https://theaoi.com/folios/merlinevans/