Elizabeth Bisbing
Near & Dear
September 2-27, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 4: 6-8 pm
The artist will be present on Saturdays throughout the show
This body of work explores the domestic as both sanctuary and constraint—a space where identity is shaped through the architecture of memory. Created between a compact apartment in New York City (near) and a cottage on villa Il Palmerino in Florence, (dear). The work is informed by two vastly different environments. Near can refer to closeness in distance as well as feelings. Dear is something or someone that is treasured. Il Palmerino is a cultural residence where artists, writer, musicians, etc. can enjoy both the quiet and the company. It’s a place that nurtures creativity.
Floral and botanical motifs appear throughout from the lush New York Botanical Garden in NYC and the bountiful gardens of Palmerino as drawings and paintings.
These contrasting abodes influence how Bisbing thinks about space—not only as something lived in, but as something that lives in us. Creating collages through paper painted in gouache, she builds layered compositions that sit at the intersection of coziness and containment. Intimacy and pressure. Pattern is used as a means of crowding the spaces and to invoke the idea of horror vacui (a term in art that is associated with outsider art). This concept is also apparent in the scribbly ink botanical drawings.