Exhibition Review - Melih Meric's Stitched Editions: Cascading Saplings
When I first saw Melih Meric’s Stitched Editions, the latest iteration of which were on view this past summer in Cascading Saplings at M Contemporary Art in Detroit, I wondered if they were textiles. But the rich systems of floral and geometric imagery are in fact made from Japanese paper: these are series of woodblock prints in fact. Closer looking invites comparisons to gardens, which is no accident. Yes, the flowers and other botanical elements we see evoke the aesthetics of organic life, but so too does the process of creating the stitched editions on exhibition in Cascading Saplings.
“Most stitched editions in the show are made up of two prints: inner pattern and outer pattern,” they explain in an artist’s statement. Like marigolds and tomatoes or nasturtiums and cucumbers, the inner and outer patterns form a symbiosis of sorts, inverting one another with every iteration, forming the “cascading” effect that gives the exhibition its name.
The individual prints (the unstitched editions, if you will) provide windows onto delicately layered ecosystems all their own, somehow just as complex as their stitched counterparts. A few of these are on display in Meric’s Cascading Saplings, an addition that allows the viewer’s gaze to zoom in and out on the artist’s process. However engrossing they are on their own, these stunningly intricate configurations of leaves, flowers, and fruit gain new purpose and aesthetic power as part of the larger “stitched” image.
Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Melih Meric’s practice has long been concerned with using printmaking as a vehicle for discussion of diaspora and assimilation. “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,” they have said. Using a blend of traditional hand-printing and contemporary laser engravings, Meric imbues each print with a stratified identity, a nuanced yet tangible material history and individual role in a larger aesthetic macrocosm.
“Multiplicity” is perhaps the central concept of Stitched Editions: Cascading Saplings. With their printmaking practice, Meric visualizes not only the multiplicitous nature of cultural identity (both of objects and people) but of value, too. The value of art, of commodity, and the value—or lack thereof—in attempting to combine the two entities. Meric’s unique means of relating the prints, almost biological, ensures a presentation divorced from the obsession with singularity we’ve come to expect from traditional presentations of art objects.
Meric has been showing their work for nearly a decade, developing their practice of “stitched editions” for nearly as long, but this presentation feels stunningly fresh. “This exhibition was born from a feeling of needing to grow and to be seen,” they explain. The artist’s development is palpable in this milestone solo exhibition, setting Meric’s practice on course for continued growth as green and lush as the printed world they have so lovingly created.
Stitched Editions: Cascading Saplings was on view at M Contemporary in Detroit, Michigan, July 19 - August 9, 2024. You can view the exhibition here.
