Peter Beard: The Scheme of Things focuses on works from 1960–1977, tracing the artist's shift from singular image to dense, tactile assemblage. Anchored by the monumental The Elephant in the Course of Time (1977), the exhibition positions Beard's surfaces as ecosystems in themselves — layered with marginalia, news clippings, ink, and animal blood. Portraits of Warhol and Blixen become stratified archives of persona; ecological works dissolve boundaries between biological science and social theory. Throughout, Beard inserts himself as witness rather than authority, a relational steward of a world in decline.
