Merrill Peterson

Merrill Peterson was born and educated in Iowa, but has spent his adult life in Lincoln, Nebraska. When he and his wife Nancy first came to Lincoln, he taught at Lincoln High School where he was chair of the art department. He ventured into the corporate world for some years and recently retired from Southeast Community College as the Graphic Design Program Chair.  His work is in many private and corporate collections including the Sioux City Art Center Museum, Iowa.

“The idea that one could create illusion of space or depth by following certain basic principles was magic to me. What is possible on a two-dimensional surface offers possibilities beyond the reality of physical three-dimensional space. The fiction of painting provides opportunity for surprise and magic.  I’m simultaneously delighted and repulsed by irony, dichotomy and the positive and negative aspects of virtually everything I observe.”