September 19, 2025
Lester Julian Merriweather (b.1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art and a BA from Jackson State University.
Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, CAM St. Louis, TOPS Gallery, CrosstownArts and Powerhouse Memphis, Diverseworks in Houston, Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, and the Atlanta Contemporary. He has also exhibited internationally at the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland.
Merriweather served as the first Curatorial Director of the Jones Gallery & the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Memphis from 2010-2016. He worked on the Board of Directors for Number, Inc. independent journal where he created the Art of the South Exhibition Series.
He is a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council and the artsAccelerator Grant Panel. Merriweather served as the Curatorial Consultant for the PPF Contemporary Art Collection in Memphis, Tennessee.
Merriweather most recently participated in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage. Originating at The Frist Art Museum, the exhibition travels to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston & The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.
