Grandson of two painters and the son of another, Galen Mercer was born in 1962 in Toronto, Ontario. Painting professionally since his late teens, after graduating from fine arts school Thornton Hall Academy, Galen opted for a life combining art and sport, gravitating to New York's Catskill Mountains where he maintained a studio for almost two decades. Today he is widely considered among the finest land-waterscape and sporting artists of his generation.

His diverse body of work is characterized by a delight in and acute sensitivity to color and rhythm, united within graceful and dynamic compositions. Deeply schooled in classic artistic traditions and possessing exceptional formal technique, Galen Mercer's art embodies the vigor and bracing immediacy of the modern. Equally fluent in portraiture, landscape and still life, his painting takes as its subject the whirl and innate vitality of nature, yet remains highly sensitive to quiet, organizing harmonies.

"I am always mindful of the internal force of whatever subject I paint, its amplitude and precise shadings. This critical but unquantifiable essence is a visceral thing, pitched to emotion, then translated to color and tone. Most of all, I seek to make each of my paintings emphatic. As they progress, I often try to compose a musical equivalent in my mind, hopefully transferring their particular rhythmic interplay onto a flat surface."

Having roamed extensively in the role of artist, writer and sportsman, he has visited and worked in, among other places, Quebec, British Columbia, Iceland, Russia, the Central Pacific, Argentina, the British Isles and France. While creating compelling images of some of the world's wildest and most far-flung places, Galen has at the same time built a considerable body of work reflecting his first and greatest love, America's richly varied lands and waters.

His work has appeared in numerous books and publications, and has been the subject of several feature articles. He has also done commissions ranging from a portrait of Ernest Hemingway's son, noted sportsman Jack Hemingway, to an altarpiece for the First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, CT.

Galen Mercer's work has been collected and avidly sought for over two decades. His paintings are in numerous private collections abroad as well as many others throughout North and South America. His art has appeared in several group shows and he has been afforded a number of one-man exhibitions at such venues as The American Museum of Flyfishing and Laurence Rockefeller's Beaverkill Gallery.

Galen and his wife Jaimie currently live in Arlington, Vermont, where he maintains his present studio.