Jeffrey Meris Artist Lecture: “I. Held. Up”

Join Tufts University Art Galleries and the SMFA at Tufts MFA Program for an artist lecture “I. Held. Up” with Jeffrey Meris. Meris’s art explores the power of ecology and embodiment to liberate and heal from individual and historical trauma. Much of his inspiration comes from the built and natural environments—and seeing where and how those two worlds collide. He often explores the relationship between material items and larger cultural and social phenomena.  

Jeffrey Meris (b. 1991, Haiti, raised in the Bahamas) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with the relationship between materiality and larger cultural and social phenomenon. Meris earned an AA in arts and crafts from the University of the Bahamas in 2012, a BFA in sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in 2015, and an MFA in visual arts from Columbia University in 2019. Meris has exhibited at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles (2025); Prospect NOLA 6 (2024); Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts (2024); MoMA PS1, New York (2023); the Amon Carter Museum, Texas (2023); Lehmann Maupin, New York (2022), among other galleries, museums and institutions. Meris is a Vilcek Creative Promise Prize Awardee 2025; a Jerome Hill Artists Fellow 2025- 2028; and a Studio Museum in Harlem artist in residence 2022-2023. Always Jeffrey never “Jeff.”

Photograph of Jeffrey Meris by Ben Rosser for Vilcek Foundation.