Beverly Fishman American, b. 1955
Untitled (Stacked a+c), 2018
Urethane paint on wood
41 x 34 x 2 in
104.1 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm
104.1 x 86.4 x 5.1 cm
7386
Copyright Beverly Fishman, 2018
Further images
Beverly Fishman’s highly-polished Pill Reliefs utilize iconic pharmaceutical forms as the basis for seemingly abstract compositions that radiate with color. Made with urethane automotive paint and medium-density fiberboard (MDF), the...
Beverly Fishman’s highly-polished Pill Reliefs utilize iconic pharmaceutical forms as the basis for seemingly abstract compositions that radiate with color. Made with urethane automotive paint and medium-density fiberboard (MDF), the works sometimes reference a single pill form and other times present an assemblage of pill forms — a chemical cocktail.
Integral to the success of these works is the fact that so many of them possess distinctive voids. Nicknamed “Missing Doses,” these pieces engage vacant space with color and light. They evoke the work of light and space artists like James Turrell in their ability to activate emptiness and raise questions about what truly is the subject of the work. They also harken back to John McLaughlin, the pioneering artist on whose philosophies most early Light and Space work is based. In the 1940s, McLaughlin became influenced by Zen philosophy — specifically the way it addresses the idea of the void. Similarly, Fishman’s abstract compositions reflect on the in-between spaces, the so-called vacancies, which provide meaning and structure to art, and to life.
Artist Background:
Beverly Fishman (b. 1955, US) is a multi-disciplined artist whose provocative, visually electrifying position combines the handmade with the industrial to explore technological, scientific, and biological systems of perception and representation. The work instigates constructive conversations about the ways people see their bodies and minds, and construct their identities. Her most illustrious bodies of work engage with the visual language of the medical industrial complex.
Fishman has received multiple prestigious awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and an NEA Fellowship Grant. Her work has been written about extensively in the press, including in The New York Times, Art21 Magazine, Hyperallergic, Art Critical and Juxtapose. Her recent solo exhibitions include DOSE, curated by Nick Cave, at the CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY, Pill Spill, at the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI, and Pharmako, at Galerie Richard, Paris, France.
Work by Fishman is included in multiple private and institutional collections, including that of the Miami Art Museum, the MacArthur Foundation, Alfred Taubman, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Columbus Museum of Art, The Kresge Art Museum, and the Istanbul Art Centre.
Integral to the success of these works is the fact that so many of them possess distinctive voids. Nicknamed “Missing Doses,” these pieces engage vacant space with color and light. They evoke the work of light and space artists like James Turrell in their ability to activate emptiness and raise questions about what truly is the subject of the work. They also harken back to John McLaughlin, the pioneering artist on whose philosophies most early Light and Space work is based. In the 1940s, McLaughlin became influenced by Zen philosophy — specifically the way it addresses the idea of the void. Similarly, Fishman’s abstract compositions reflect on the in-between spaces, the so-called vacancies, which provide meaning and structure to art, and to life.
Artist Background:
Beverly Fishman (b. 1955, US) is a multi-disciplined artist whose provocative, visually electrifying position combines the handmade with the industrial to explore technological, scientific, and biological systems of perception and representation. The work instigates constructive conversations about the ways people see their bodies and minds, and construct their identities. Her most illustrious bodies of work engage with the visual language of the medical industrial complex.
Fishman has received multiple prestigious awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and an NEA Fellowship Grant. Her work has been written about extensively in the press, including in The New York Times, Art21 Magazine, Hyperallergic, Art Critical and Juxtapose. Her recent solo exhibitions include DOSE, curated by Nick Cave, at the CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY, Pill Spill, at the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI, and Pharmako, at Galerie Richard, Paris, France.
Work by Fishman is included in multiple private and institutional collections, including that of the Miami Art Museum, the MacArthur Foundation, Alfred Taubman, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Columbus Museum of Art, The Kresge Art Museum, and the Istanbul Art Centre.