Melih Meriç, who earned a 2023 MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, is one of eight artists chosen from nearly 400 applicants for a national juried exhibition at Print Center New York in Chelsea.

The show, "New Voices: Design," opened June 11 and runs through Saturday, August 22. It marks the fourth year of Print Center New York's open call program for emerging artists, which pairs exhibitions with mentorship and professional development. Curator Andrew Raftery, a professor of printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, selected the cohort to examine how pattern functions across contemporary printmaking. The exhibition was also featured in Surface magazine, according to Cranbrook.

Meriç, born in Istanbul in 1998, creates stitched editions and embossed works on paper that draw on Middle Eastern tile-making traditions. Their pieces explore diaspora, assimilation, and queerness. They sew individual prints together on Japanese paper, referencing Iznik ceramic tiles, Ottoman and Persian textiles, and cross-stitching.

"My work deals with making peace with a part of my culture that drove me to leave it," Meriç said in the Cranbrook announcement. "Finding beauty in design and simplicity, then creating systems to complicate those principles."

In 2025, Meriç received the Individual Excellence Award in Visual Arts from the Ohio Arts Council. Their work has been exhibited in Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and internationally in Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Austria, and Turkey.

Cranbrook says its Print Media program is the only solely studio-based printmaking MFA in the country.

Meriç will lead a free public workshop, "Turkish Coffee + Block Printing," on Saturday, August 22, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Print Center New York, 535 West 24th St., New York. The workshop falls on the exhibition's closing day.

If you go

  • What: "New Voices: Design" exhibition featuring Melih Meriç and seven other artists
  • Where: Print Center New York, 535 West 24th St., Chelsea, New York
  • When: Through Saturday, August 22, 2026; gallery hours Tuesday–Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
  • Workshop: "Turkish Coffee + Block Printing" with Meriç, Saturday, August 22, 2–4:30 p.m.