Melisa Elif Gereççi
b. 1983
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Artful Healing, Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ (upcoming)
2021 Creative Resilience, Newark Arts Festival, Newark, NJ
2021 Welcome Back to the World, Index Art Center, Newark, NJ
2020 Pushing the Envelope, Pulp Holyoke Gallery, Holyoke, MA
2019 Green Zine Fair, Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York, NY
PUBLIC-FACING WORK
2022 Signal Ahead, 2 x 3 feet and 2 x 2 feet, aluminum, brass, stainless steel, and wood
Nailed a thousand hand-made sequins into two old road signs for installation on the East Coast Greenway in Metuchen, NJ
2022 City Feast, 40 x 6 x 12 feet, Audible, Inc.
Indoor mural at Innovation Cathedral with Newark Artist Collaboration for Audible headquarters. Life-sized, hand-drawn people enjoying Newark’s culinary abundance. Celebrates cultural traditions and activates cross-cultural exchange with a visual guide to locally available dishes.
2022 Yards Alive!, 4 ½ x 10 feet, Rutgers University Office of Urban Extension and Engagement
Four-panel drawing exploring climate change and collective impact. I enlarged real-estate marketing images, erased the lawns, and replaced them with hand-drawn native plants. Engages community to reimagine property ownership as an opportunity for natural resource stewardship.
2021 Shelter in the Snow, card design for The Bowery Mission, New York, NY
2021 Reading Room, limited-edition risograph print held by The Newark Public Library
2021 Foodways, Windows of Understanding, New Brunswick, NJ
Illustrated and fabricated large-scale paper sculptures for public art project. Collaborated with community kitchen to develop site-specific concept for high-traffic site. Liaised with Metuchen Arts Council, Highland Park Arts Commission, and New Brunswick Community Arts Council.
2020 Accordion, magnet design contest popular vote winner, Texas Folklife, Austin, TX
2020 Alligator, bookmark design contest popular vote winner, Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX
2019 Show Posters, Brick City Comedy Revue, Newark, NJ
2018 Menu design, Simit House Café, Montclair, NJ
EDUCATION
2009 New York University School of Law, JD
2005 The University of Texas at Austin, BA Plan II Liberal Arts
SELECT PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
2022 Place-Making with Public Art, The University of Texas at San Antonio (upcoming)
2021 Clothes Up and Personal: Portraits of Four Fashion Designers, The Newarker Magazine
2020 The Streets will be Empty this Good Friday, The Star-Ledger
2019 From Arne Duncan to Betsy DeVos: Litigating Title IX as the Rules are Rewritten, NSBA Santa Fe
2019 Race, Color & National Origin: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, NACUA Denver
2005 Adaptive Reuse of the Lone Star Brewery as the San Antonio Museum of Art, Honors Thesis
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Advocated for schools and universities and counseled educational institutions on civil rights as a lawyer from 2010-2020. Judicial law clerk to the Honorable Ramon E. Reyes, Jr., in Brooklyn federal court in 2009.