One of Bern’s best-kept secrets
Meret Meyer Scapa. Devoting a Life to Art
The Bernese artist Meret Meyer-Scapa is one of our city’s best-kept secrets. Despite the fact that she had many friends in the dance and art scenes, she always kept her own art a secret. She did not pass any knowledge on to outsiders about the creation, dates, and contents of her pictures, collages, and three-dimensional objects. To date, it was only once possible to persuade her to have her work exhibited.
On the occasion of her 85th birthday, the artist is stepping out of “hiding,” with fascinating insights into more than sixty years of art production and a comprehensive oeuvre.
Meret Meyer-Scapa’s enigmatic art could be only created in a world free of outside influences. This makes it all the more authentic, exotic, and baffling. Her motifs are unmistakably personal, and each artwork is a frozen image out of one of her dreams. They undergo constant transformation: the outer appearance of flowers, landscapes, houses, animals, and people is changing unceasingly. Everything flows. Nothing is ever just something but always simultaneously all other things too. Evolutionary processes take place in time-lapse sequences within fertile gardens and seething swamp biotopes, in submarine depths and the suction of eddying currents. Some of Meret’s creations seem to be artistic ornaments for adorning the parlors of the upper middle-class. They present a world of flowers and animals that are at home within the primal habitats of distant eras, and sometimes may seem exotic and uncanny, sometimes blithe and humorous. Alongside these she painted flower still lifes and landscapes, sculpted statues of animals, made bizarre vases and urns.
Not a single piece of Meret Meyer-Scapa’s entire oeuvre is owned by a public collection. With the presentation at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the catalogue being published in conjunction with it, we are able to get an initial glimpse into the outstanding work of this unique Bernese artist.
