"Sunny Caribbee Gallery [email, located on Main Street in Tortola's Road Town] is pleased to announce the opening of a 4 week showing of original paintings and giclee prints, by one of the Caribbean's most popular artists, Karl Merklein from January 23rd through February 21st, 2002.

'I spent the first eleven years of my life in Oxford, England, where it was cold, dull and serious. The day I found out that there were places where the sun shines more than three days a year, I was off and running. I guess you could say I rebelled'.

To essay: The Caribbean Paintings of Karl Merklein.

Karl's 'running' took him to the Eastern Caribbean 'where no one takes anything seriously. Lets face it, a place where you could get killed by falling coconuts is pretty jolly'.

Karl's painting depict life as a perpetual vacation. In the morning you open your shutters to the sound of the surf, the scent of dewy frangipani and the trilling of tropical birds. On a narrow street, a vendor sells coconuts from the back of a mini van, as goats wander by and island dogs stretch out in the sunlight. In the words of one art critic, 'Merklein creates a world of color and animation that makes you wish you could slather on the suntan lotion, jump into the painting and join the fun'.

Like his artwork, Karl continues to keep moving. He has lived all over the world, bending lines and dispensing jolliness with his whimsical view of life. A world where straight lines, earth tones and temperatures below tropical do not exist.

Karl's work in renowned, and can be found in selective galleries in America and Europe and Sunny Caribbee Gallery [2001 show]."