The same blue sky, 2026, copper acetate on ruched cotton facial towels on wood panel, 16” * 20” * 2”
In the same blue sky (2026), Meris expands upon his earlier care paintings by creating alchemical works informed by his research on the Haitian-born poet Assotto Saint. These alchemical paintings harness oxidized copper as an allegory to the physical and psychic effects of the human-immunocompromised-virus on the human body. Copper that environmental factors have tarnished is restored using acetic acid, sodium-chlorine, and water. The resulting dyed cotton tea towels are then ruched and stretched into paintings. Meris’s alchemical painting series activates the language of color-field abstraction to consider the labor of care, restoration, and acts of queer resistance pointing to an urgent futurity.
The otherside of prospect , 2026, copper acetate on ruched cotton facial towels on wood panel, 16” * 20” * 2”
Promise land, 2022, acetic acid and salt on copper and steel residue on t-shirts, aluminum, poplar, 48" * 48"