Beverly Fishman’s highly-polished Pill Reliefs utilize 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, as in this work from 2020, they present an assemblage of pill forms — a chemical cocktail. Integral to the success of this work is the presence of distinctive voids in some of the pill forms. Nicknamed “Missing Doses,” these pieces engage the vacant, interior spaces with color and light. Fishman is directly referencing the transformative power of pharmaceuticals and the transcendent potential of visual art, suggesting the ways people have come to use both as an avenue through which to seek the sublime. The color-and-light-filled forms evoke both the metaphysical theories and aesthetic strategies of the Light and Space Movement, as the missing pieces activate emptiness, exploring the creative potential of voids and raising questions about what truly is the subject of the work.

This piece is part of a new moment in Fishman's aesthetic explorations that emerged in the past decade, addressing the topic of "polypharmacy." Polypharmacy is the simultaneous use of multiple drugs to treat a single ailment or condition, often issued together as one medication serves to counteract the dangerous side effects of another (primary) medication in the set. Increasingly common, especially among the elderly, the practice is still little understood for all its possible complications. Fishman unites the pills in a common composition, a Frankenstein of intersecting colors and forms which elude comprehension.