is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores relationships between material, gesture, and larger cultural and social phenomena. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, and drawing, Meris' work considers ecology, embodiment, and various lived experiences, and looks to heal deeply personal and historical wounds. Meris's native Bahamas often appear as both setting and subject in his work, where incisive critiques of imperialism and colonial legacies are interwoven with intimate reflections on body, kinship, movement, and reconciliation.
Jeffrey Meris (b. 1991, Haiti, raised in Bahamas) lives and works between New York City and the Bahamas. He earned a BFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in 2015, and an MFA from Columbia University in 2019. Selected solo exhibitions include Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles; and White Columns, New York. Selected group exhibitions include Prospect 6, New Orleans; Studio Museum and MoMA PS1, New York; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown; Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art, Ridgefield; Lehmann Maupin, New York; James Cohan Gallery, New York; Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco; Halle 14, Leipzig; and the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau. Meris is an alumni of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, as well as a NXTHVN Studio fellow and a previous artist-in-residence at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program and the Studio Museum in Harlem.
