Born in 1963 in a rural town in Maine, Daniel Merriam taught himself to paint at a very young age. He went on to study mechanical and architectural design at Central Maine Vocational Technical Institute and, while still in school, applied his newfound skills to his family’s design and construction business. Merriam turned to the field of architectural design professionally, where his illustrations received numerous awards, including an Honorary Masters of Human Letters from the University of New England in recognition of the potential social contribution of his work. In 1986, Merriam shifted his focus solely to fine art, and later that year had his first solo exhibition. Since then, his exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe have been lauded and achieved critical acclaim. The hallmark of Merriam’s work is his boundless imagination that weaves together a world that is both fantastic and rooted in the beauty of the Victorian age. His paintings hung next to those of Salvador Dali in a museum show entitled Venus and the Female Intuition, and traveled through Denmark, Sweden and France in 2007 and 2008.