Near and Dear – Interview with Artist Elizabeth Bisbing | Interiors, Botanicals, Motherhood & Art

Introduction

On July 9, 2025, in New York City, artist Elizabeth Bisbing sat down with Pamela Tucker and Nancy Sandler Bass for a conversation about her exhibition Near and Dear. Known for her detailed interiors and vibrant botanical works, Bisbing reflects on her inspirations, motherhood, daily life, and her creative process.

The Interview

A Conversation: Elizabeth Bisbing, Pamela Tucker, and Nancy Sandler Bass

Elisabeth Bisbing: I call my show Near and Dear because while my work was inspired by homey spaces and landscapes in two countries, my focus was always close to me: personal interiors and gardens.

The home has been a motif for me for a long time. It’s always been a part of what I did… even before I went to art school, because though I was always an artist, I was a mother of three before I went for my undergraduate degree… and a mother of four before I got my MFA.

Also, I grew up in a household with four siblings, and it was filled with constant activity. Later, as a mother myself, my home was full of commotion and the demands of motherhood. My work expresses the sensibility of the busy household that I experienced both as a child growing up and later as a mother of my own family. My pieces have always been a way to organize and process my life experience.

Pamela Tucker: Your press release mentions qualities in your work of containment, intimacy, and pressure. Why pressure?

Elizabeth: For one thing, many of the interiors have at least two, sometimes three, walls visible, and usually the walls are not completely straight. The walls are architecturally unstable, creating a tension.

Nancy Sandler Bass: Still, the compositions come together in a cohesive, if what appears to be, unstable way.

PT: Once you were an adult with your own family, and in light of the very full life you were leading as a mother, I’m intrigued by the mention in your press release of the horror vacui concept (the fear of emptiness) that is present in your work. The symbols and intricate patterns you use to “escape" the vacuum may also serve to work against evil forces. They are a protective magic.

EB: And a house, by definition, is also protection. I’d like to make the viewer feel like they are in a nest. But it’s also kind of funny. Here, in Kitchen Table, I picture myself with fish-eyed glasses, and for emphasis, a fish in a painting on the wall behind me. My work has a whimsical quality.

NSB: Your pieces are incredibly intimate, but also exacting in the way you nail down the qualities of every book, the furnishings, and each artwork.

PT: Speaking of intimacy, some of your table scenes remind me of Greek icons where Christ is at one side of a table and there are empty chairs on the table’s other side. The waiting chairs were invitations to the faithful to join Christ for the meal. In your work, the chairs and couches, often complete with a cat, also seem like invitations to sit.

Italian Influences

PT: Would you say that the work you did in Italy is different from the work you did in New York?

EB: The interiors from Italy are a bit more open. But everything is just so wonderful there. The apartment where we stay during our Italian residencies is furnished with antiques, oil paintings, frescoes, and sculptures. There’s so much that is rich with history.

PT: The depictions of art in the Italian rooms are little beauties in themselves. You’ve abstracted the head sculpture in this painting Afternoon Repose, into a perfect little cubist head! It’s like a little Picasso.

NSB: Elizabeth gets it ALL in. You don’t omit anything. It’s magical that you can do this.

EB: It’s kind of addictive once you start doing it.

NSB: There’s such a focus and intensity that I feel that your experience is so deep, looking at the space and how you articulate it. You’re really diving into it. They’re very, very personal.

EB: And they’re not big spaces either.

NSB: I love how you included your husband, your cat, and the things you love in your pieces. In Where is That Book, I love that Richard looks like he’s going to start moving. It looks like a still image from a movie. You’re really capturing daily life.

EB: I’m trying.

Botanical Energy

NSB: For me, your botanical work is all about the natural experience. Those pieces are buzzing with energy and connectivity with the world around you. The denseness of your work suggests a constant vibration.

They have a density of detail like the interiors. So, for me, your active patterning is not so much about connecting to a childhood experience as it is about revealing the constant artistic impulse of your personality. There’s energy to you, and that energy is expressed in whatever subject you take on.

PT: They are definitely very active compositions with lots of complex curves, active line work.

EB: I always start the collages with a pencil drawing. And then I take the drawing for copies, and I use the actual copy to cut out the shapes from the painted paper. I use gouache on paper. The color is not preplanned. I never do multiples or prints. And I don’t want to have prints made by print houses either. For me, a key part of my practice is the making: cutting, drawing by hand. I don’t understand how, when artists get really busy, they have studios of people who make or recreate the work. I’m very hands-on. That’s the part I want to do.

And people are now going to AI to make art. I think AI should be doing the non-creative work. AI should be mopping the floor, doing housework. I want to make the art.

Closing Reflections

NSB: In both your botanicals and interiors, in NY or Italy, you always have a very clear vantage point about what’s going on. There’s an intimate, energetic, intelligent analysis that is casual, homey, and relaxed. The domestic setting may make some people underestimate the work. You are a person with a razor-sharp eye, doing incisive works that have deep emotional meaning. You see everything.

Conclusion

Through Near and Dear, Elizabeth Bisbing opens her world of interiors, botanicals, and lived spaces. Her work carries both intimacy and intensity—capturing the richness of domestic life, in Italy and New York, and the delicate energy of handmade art.

Where's the Book?

Elizabeth Bisbing Near and Dear.pdf

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