Exhibits & Events

Peep is pleased to present an installation of new monotypes by artist Elisabeth Meyer, NONFICTION; the art of the peaceable kingdom: Part I. These poetic, disorienting prints explore her personal experiences with nature and compromised relations between people. It is fitting, Meyer notes, to be showing these works for the first time in Philadelphia, considering the lifelong connection she has felt with the many iterations of Edward Hick’s 19th-century painting The Peaceable Kingdom.

Hicks, a Pennsylvania Quaker, made over a hundred versions of this painting over the course of his life. Repeated images are also inherent in print media, especially in monotypes. A “once” image may lead into the next by way of a “ghost” image, whose whole is only revealed after printing. There’s truth-seeking in this method, as there is no end for the quest, no perfect image, just a trial again and again. This repetitiveness expresses its own kind of innocent longing-Meyer understands Hicks’ effort not only to make the image different and new, but also to share a message that is urgent, insistent and bears repeating.

Elisabeth Meyer’s new monotypes embody a roiling melancholy, in the mind and in the heart, as a collection of memories. These works follow a non-linear narrative; each is a component piece contingent on the other for its consummate wholeness. This project  is a demonstration of the growing chasm between us and our environment, and a vocal defense of nature.

This series was created this spring during Meyer’s print residency at OehmeGraphics with master printer Sue Oehme.

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