Release Date: March 15,2024
Melih Meric and Alyssa Lizzini at Akron Soul Train Gallery
March 15, 2024, Akron, Ohio:
WHAT: Melih Meric and Alyssa Lizzini at Akron Soul Train Gallery
WHERE: Akron Soul Train is located at 191 S. Main Street, Akron, OH 44308
WHEN: Opening reception Friday, April 5, 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Exhibits are free and open to the public from Wednesday, April 3 through Saturday, May 11, 2024.
Printmaker Melih Meric’s Border Crossing Patterns
Akron Soul Train Artist-in-Resident Melih Meric presents “Stitched Editions: Exploring the New,” an exhibit bursting with pattern and paper. Meric uses a traditional approach to their imagery through sacred geometry and explorations of Islamic geometric abstraction. Challenging traditional presentations of print editions, Meric’s print work crosses the borders of the paper. It highlights an expansion of patterns like Middle Eastern tiles. It also speaks to queerness without being explicitly queer. “Stitched Editions: Exploring the New'' poses integral questions surrounding erasure and identity in Middle Eastern communities. Meric’s craft lies in creating wall-hanging objects that play between the realms of dimensionality while still being unmistakably paper. Their work acknowledges and is proud of its dimension, speaking certain truths to multiple minority groups.
“My work deals with making peace with a part of my culture that drove me to leave it. Finding beauty in design and simplicity, then creating systems to complicate those principles. I fell in love with printmaking and the idea of multiplicity when I first made the connection to tiles from the Middle East. It suddenly became a tool to create and expand patterns that challenge traditions in crafts.” - Melih Meric
About the Artist Melih Meric:
Melih Meric (b. 1998, Istanbul) is a printmaker currently residing in Akron, Ohio. They explore a spiritual journey through Islamic geometric abstraction. Using printmaking as their main medium, they create works that talk about diaspora, assimilation, and Middle Eastern traditional practices. Their works combine traditional pattern-making and a contemporary way of creating editions. With a passion for pattern and paper, they use innovative methods of printmaking and textile arts to create stitched editions and embossed works on paper. They received their MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2023 and BA from Bennington College in Printmaking. Instagram.com/gargamelih
“Stitched Editions: Exploring the New” will be exhibited April 3 - May 11, 2024 in the Burton D. Morgan Gallery in Akron Soul Train. Sponsored by Brennan, Manna, and Diamond, LLC
Alyssa Lizzini’s “Universe” in the CapSOUL Gallery
In “The Universe Between Here and There,” Alyssa Lizzini explores the interwoven connection between space, time, and memory through large-scale, multi-layer drawings. Lines, grids, maps, and data become the stars, black holes, and supernovae of an ever-expanding universe of memory. Using ink, acrylic paint, and collaged paper, Lizzini creates overlapping images that seem to compress space and time yet simultaneously fly apart or implode. Her drawings suggest that memory unravels in much the same way and investigates the almost inseparable connection between person and place.
“Drawings explore both my own personal histories related to remembered places and broader histories recorded through archival, ethnographic, and visual research of city spaces…The scale of [my] drawings allow the viewer to feel immersed in each piece, surrounded by swirling and morphing cityscapes, memory objects, and natural elements. They ask the viewer to consider the many layers of context not immediately visible in our urban world, and give a new language for understanding the ever-changing nature of memory.” - Alyssa Lizzini
About the artist Alyssa Lizzini:
Alyssa Lizzini is an artist from Cleveland, Ohio whose work explores concepts of social geography and community engagement through on-location drawing. In addition to her own experience growing up in Cleveland, Lizzini's layered images are heavily inspired by her own archival, ethnographic, and visual research of city spaces. Her research is deeply social in nature, often consisting of interviews, neighborhood walks, and other community-building practices. In the studio, she utilizes drawing, painting, and printmaking techniques to create visually complex images that mirror the complexity of our social and spatial world. Lizzini graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2022.
“The Universe Between Here and There” will be exhibited April 3 - May 11, 2024, in the CapSOUL Gallery in Akron Soul Train.
About Akron Soul Train:
Akron Soul Train is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the arts in Akron, Ohio. Through artist residencies, exhibitions, and community engagement initiatives, Akron Soul Train provides resources and opportunities for artists to explore their creativity and contribute to the cultural richness of the region.
For more information about this show, visit our website and events page at www.akronsoultrain.org or contact Pita Brooks, Executive Director at pita@akronsoultrain.org.