PEER MORE CLOSELY: MERIDITH MCNEAL

Peer More Closely is the American premiere of Meridith McNeal’s retrospective exhibition of paintings. Installed in three dollhouses from the Museum of Miniatures Houses (MMH) collection, the structures are transformed into a miniature contemporary art gallery showcasing her works. The bulk of the exhibition travels to the MMH from its fall 2025 run as Peer at the Small House Gallery in London. 

By inviting viewers to peer through miniature architectural spaces, thresholds, and windows, the exhibition transforms looking itself into an exploration of layered realities, drawing them into a world within a world, at once familiar and strange.  

On view is McNeal’s life-sized painting Inside Outside Pink House (Upper East Side, Manhattan), 2025, watercolor on paper, shown alongside tiny versions of her Inside Outside Windowphilia works. They feature views of Venice, London, Brooklyn, and Rome. These paintings reflect McNeal’s fascination with the shifting boundary between inside and out, allowing different layers of space—both near and beyond—to appear simultaneously.   

The exhibition also features selections from her Magical Things series, first exhibited at the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling in Manhattan in 2024.  Peer More Closely contains a miniature of Meridith’s studio, views of her Brooklyn neighborhood, the ubiquitous New York City clanky radiator, stacks of paintings, works in progress, Lilliputian-scale brochures, wall signage, invitations, and her cats. Viewers can peek into the private upper storage room, where packing materials, installation supplies, and tools are kept. McNeal represents these ordinary objects with such care and clarity that they become small anchors of memory, carrying intimate reminders of past moments and connections.  

A Brooklyn-based artist, Meridith McNeal has received significant national and international recognition, including juried awards, curatorial honors, shortlist finalist positions, and institutional teaching awards. She has been a frequent visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, and she exhibits regularly throughout the United States and abroad. Critics consistently acknowledge McNeal’s work for its technical mastery and conceptual depth, as well as its distinctive exploration of interior/exterior space.  

Peer More Closely is an immersive project—playful yet serious —and an invitation to look closely, with curiosity, into a miniature world of contemporary art. 

On display in Room 5 from February 18, 2026 through February 21, 2027.