Alumnus Jeffrey Meris '19 Featured in Two Shows This Fall

Alumnus Jeffrey Meris '19 is featured in two shows this fall. They are: Sanctuary at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York and Free Body at Mestre Projects in the Bahamas. 

At Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, Queens, Meris has one piece in Sanctuary. This installation will remain on view until March 6, 2022. The exhibit explores the ways in which places of sanctuary have become more important during the era of the COVID pandemic. It imagines these spaces as sites of rest, protection, and support. 

Meris’s piece is entitled Catch a Stick of Fire II. The large structure contains aluminum, hardware, glazed stoneware clay, coral cell plants, and soil. It points to the ways that plants and caring for living things are a respite for the artist. The sculpture grew from a ritual of Self-Care Saturdays that offered psychological sanctuary during the year’s twofold crisis of continued violence against Black people and the global pandemic.

The second show is Free Body, a solo show at Mestre Projects in the Bahamas. This exhibit features two series, one called “I Used to Be” and the other, “Other Body.” In the former, the artist’s drawings invoke a cosmic space that encourages the viewer to look beyond the body to a spiritual realm. In the second, Meris transforms cotton clothing by fixing it to rusted steel. The look of these pieces evokes animal hides and reminds the viewer of their own corporeality. Both pull from Caribbean thinker Édouard Glissant’s ideas about the Other and the right to opacity. 

Meris was born in Haiti in 1991 and grew up in the Bahamas. He received an AA in Arts and Crafts from the University of The Bahamas and a BFA in Sculpture from Temple University in May 2015, after being awarded the prestigious Harry C Moore, Lyford Cay Foundation Art Scholarship in 2012. Meris is the recipient of Popopstudios Junior Residency Prize 2010, Central Bank of The Bahamas Art Competition winner 2013, Guttenberg Arts Artist in Residence 2016, and Halle 14 A.I.R 2017, among others. Meris has exhibited and spoken in multiple locations including Port au Prince, New York, Los Angeles, Vienna, and Leipzig.