Jennifer Merdjan is best known for working with recycled shoes and exploring the boundless potential of intermixing several methods of artistry including digital art, photography, drawing, painting, collage, and printing with disparate materials. Her artwork uncovers the ground that binds human beings together as one. This ground is the passage of time. Her work takes various final forms: sculptural, two-dimensional, artist books.

Jennifer Merdjan has been making sculptures by repurposing every shoe she has worn for the last 28 years, and she has no plans to stop in the future. Works from her If Shoes Could Talk Project has raised funds for the United Nations and the American Heart Association.  They were featured on Univision’s Control TV show.  She has exhibited her shoe sculptures in New York City at the Plaxall Gallery, the Material for the Arts Gallery, and the 92Y Tribeca Gallery.

“Every shoe tells a story of where you have been and where you are going. By repurposing utilitarian objects that most people use, I act as a catalyst to bring out the passage of time hidden within them.  This metamorphosis encourages the viewer to endow these overlooked objects with temporality and subjectivity, restoring the viewer’s own awareness of the dynamic changes of life.”

Her graphic designs reached national audiences during the time she worked in magazine and book publishing.  She now designs artist books.

In 2021, Merdjan had her first international exhibit at ICANA-Instituto Cultural Argentino Norteamericano.  She regularly exhibits her artwork at the Plaxall Gallery.  She has also shown her artwork across different venues through out the states including the Lever House, Artisan Gallery, MFTA Gallery, Joyce Robins Gallery, Museum of Chinese in America, Barnes and Noble at The Citicorp Building, and The Urban Center. Merdjan has also created a line of hand-painted silk scarves, which sold in boutiques throughout New York City and at the gift shop of the American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Art and Design), Henri Bendel, and at a benefit auction at the Argentine consulate. 

Jennifer Merdjan is first generation American, Latinx, based in NYC. Her cultural background is rich in history and spans countries in South America, Europe and the Middle East. These international roots have influenced her artwork to encompass themes and subject matters that focus on unity and time.

Merdjan received a post graduate certificate in graphic design from Parsons School of Design, a M.S. in Art Education, and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Applied Arts from Queens College (QC). At QC she studied with Liliana Porter. During her undergraduate studies, she challenged herself and graduated with three majors and two minors in four years. Her intellectual and aesthetic curiosity in multiple disciplines has impacted her process when making art.

Additionally, she has been awarded academic grants for study at Harvard, Stanford, New York University, Yale University, Accademia di Firenze in Italy, and summer-study tours in China, Germany and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

As an educator, Merdjan has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing innovative curriculum that combines art, design and technology on the college, and high school level.  She currently teaches art to Multilingual Learners that are recent immigrants and/or refugees at the International High School for Health Sciences. Her teaching experience also includes working at selective NYC public schools such as  Bard High School Early College Queens (BHSECQ), and Brooklyn Technical High School. She was founding faculty at BHSECQ. In this role she created and directed the entire school’s visual art program for over a decade. In 2014 she received the Art Educator of the Year award from the New York City Art Teachers Association. In 2023 she was a CUNY/UA Finalist for the Big Apple Awards.