I, Used to Be (XX), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (series) are drawings made using double-sided tape and the plaster particles that are abraded down from the plaster cast and kinetic sculptures: Now You See Me; Now You Don’t. Meris uses roofing paper, a ubiquitous construction material found after hurricanes decimate homes in the Caribbean, and double-sided tape which resembles sticky insect tape to catch bugs in humid tropical homes to mount plaster particles into these cosmic abstractions. The scale of I, Used to Be (series) are in conversation architecturally with both the artist’s body on a micro level and the R62 subway car on a macro level.

I, Used to Be function as both cartographies and abstractions posits freedom as being an endless abyss intertwined with what it means to inhabit Blackness.


I, Used to Be (xiii), 2021, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38"


Perhaps Descartes' greatest theory,  je pense, donc je suis (I think, therefore I am), encapsulates the hypocrisy of the French Enlightenment Era. What does it mean for the French and (white)man to have agency yet simultaneously and ironically colonize Haiti? Meris traces his francophone subjectivity using plaster particulates that fall from his kinetic sculptures, Now You See Me, Now You Don't, to create a sense of his own agency in his I, Used To Be drawings. I Used to Be drawings are made on roofing paper, a culturally and geographically specific material to his life in the Bahamas, where roofs are commonly blown away after a hurricane, and on double-sided tape, similar to EZ-fly traps specific to tropical climates. These drawings aim to map the abstract nature of freedom, moving from the concrete subjectivity of the body to the endless possibilities of abstraction.   

I, Used to Be (XIX), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (XVIII), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (XVII), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (XVI), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (XIV), 2021, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 


I, Used to Be (x), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 

I, Used to Be (v), 2022, plaster particles on roofing paper, double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38" 

Lean on me, 2023,  plaster particles on roofing paper, magazines, luster photo print, neutral ph adhesive, and double-sided adhesive tape, , 81” * 38”


I, Used to Be (series) are drawings made using double-sided tape and the plaster particles that are abraded down from the plaster cast and kinetic sculptures: Now You See Me; Now You Don’t. Meris uses roofing paper, a ubiquitous construction material found after hurricanes decimate homes in the Caribbean, and double-sided tape which resembles sticky insect tape to catch bugs in humid tropical homes to mount plaster particles into these cosmic abstractions. The scale of I, Used to Be (series) are in conversation architecturally with both the artist’s body on a micro level and the R62 subway car on a macro level.

I, Used to Be function as both cartographies and abstractions posits freedom as being an endless abyss intertwined with what it means to inhabit Blackness. In later works such as Lean on me (2023) Meris incorporates photography and collage. 

We, the Greater Universe, 2023, plaster particles on asphalt roofing paper, magazines, luster photo print, neutral ph adhesive, and double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38"

Thug Life, 2023, plaster particles on asphalt roofing paper, magazines, luster photo print, neutral ph adhesive, and double-sided adhesive tape,81" * 38"

Imperial Strike, 2023,  plaster particles on asphalt roofing paper, magazines, luster photo print, neutral ph adhesive, and double-sided adhesive tape, 81" * 38"

Imperial Strike

Lean on me,
We, the Greater Universe



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