Meredith Leich

Meredith Leich (b. 1986) is an animator, painter, and installation artist, whose work explores the nature of cities, place-based histories, and climate change through scientific research and intuitive visual exploration. She seeks psychologically-attuned ways of responding to the climate crisis: rather than inducing terror, she aims for wonder, imagination, and even humor as means of creating a receptive state in which to consider a frightening future.

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 a 2015-16 Arts, Science & Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago and received a 2018 Individual Artist Grant from Chicago’s DCASE. She was a 2011 - 2012 resident at Root Division, San Francisco, and has completed residencies at the Tide Institute and Museum of Art, Nes Artist Residency, Studios of Key West, the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Wrangell Mountain Center in McCarthy, Alaska. Meredith received her BA from Swarthmore College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also lectured in the Film, Video, New Media, and Animation department for five years. She currently serves as the Co-Director of the Cuttyhunk Island Artists’ Residency. 

“The most ethereal works are Meredith Leich’s videos, filmed on sea- and ice-forged locations in Iceland, Alaska and a small Massachusetts island that may be submerged by a rising ocean. The Boston artist projects patterns on boulders or a large boat propeller, using stop-action animation to suggest aquatic currents or glacial movements. Leich’s creations are delicately beautiful, but they warn of such perils as the slowing of the Gulf Stream and the disappearance of glaciers.”

Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post (2024)