Site Lines | Meredith Leich and Mike Marks

Come explore Site Lines, an exhibition showcasing Boston-based artist Meredith Leich’s animated drawings presented in video and installation formats and Minneapolis- based Mike Marks’ large-scale graphite and printmaking works. The pairing of these two artist's work offers the viewer the opportunity to explore two perspectives on landscape drawing and concerns about climate fragility - offering the viewer new ways to consider materials and technology in the making process. Join us for an artist talk on September 25 and the reception afterward!

Meredith Leich’s hand-drawn and digital animations are projected at twilight (or during an eclipse) on the very landscapes the animations inspired. Leich creates videos as these white-light animations are being projected directly  back onto the landscapes, echoing the internal knowledge that accompanies – or interferes with – encountering nature. Leich often works directly with scientists, to learn from their process and discoveries, as she orients her work in a changing world. Through abstracted visuals, the animations evoke invisible stories: the formation of a glacier, the trajectory of an ocean current, the alignment of celestial bodies, the path of a migrating tern.

Mike Marks’ prints and drawings speak to the fragility of the landscape and our perception of it.  Based on his own experiences, these works address the tension between beauty and the potential for loss that occurs in our relationship with the landscape.  His prints approach this by slowing down the pace of digital image consumption into painstakingly hand-carved woodcuts.  The graphite drawings on the other hand reflect an interest in embracing and magnifying fleeting moments of solitude in nature.

About the Artists:

Meredith Leich (b. 1986) a painter, animator, and video artist. Her work explores our relationship with our changing environment, through research, collaboration, and intuitive visual exploration. The Boston Globe stated that Leich’s work is “uncanny yet earthbound” and “asks to witness what we have wrought” and the Washington Post described her work as “delicately beautiful but [...] warns of [...] perils.” Meredith’s films have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Athens International Film + Video Festival, and Chicagoland Shorts, among others, and she has shown her work at venues nationally and abroad. 

Her collaboration with glaciologist Andrew Malone was awarded an Arts, Science & Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago, second place in Deutsche Bank’s “Macht Kunst” Contest, and an Individual Artist Grant from Chicago’s DCASE. She has completed residencies at the Tide Institute and Museum of Art, Studios of Key West, Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Wrangell Mountain Center in McCarthy, Alaska, among others. Meredith received her BA from Swarthmore College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also lectured in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation for five years. She currently serves as the Co-Director of the Cuttyhunk Island Artists’ Residency. 

Mike Marks (b. 1984, Morgantown, West Virginia), has been working out of Minneapolis and the Highpoint Center for Printmaking since 2016.  Using predominantly drawing and printmaking processes, his work explores how memory and landscape become fragile depictions of one another.  He’s received numerous grants and fellowships over the years for his work, including a McKnight Foundation Printmaking Fellowship (2020), Minnesota State Arts Board Grant (2019), and Jerome Foundation Fellowship (2018).

His work is among the permanent collections of institutions such as: The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Douro Museum (Peso da Régua, Portugal); Munakata Shiko Memorial Museum of Art (Aomori, Japan); Zuckerman Museum of Art (Kennesaw, GA); California College of Arts (Oakland, CA); Acadia National Park (Bar Harbor, ME), and the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Gallery Hours:
Monday - Friday: 9am - 8pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11am - 6p

Image:
Mike Marks (left): Remnant, graphite on paper, 2025
Meredith Leich (right): Projection for a Total Eclipse, animation, created from charcoal drawings, 2024