Beverly Fishman American, b. 1955

This highly-polished Pill Relief by Beverly Fishman utilizes pharmaceutical forms as the basis for a seemingly abstract composition that radiates with color. Made with urethane automotive paint and medium-density fiberboard (MDF), some works from this series reference a single pill form while others, like this composition, are an assemblage of pill forms—a chemical cocktail.

In this composition, the forms at either end, which relate to medication for diabetes and depression, are partial, suggestive of someone cutting their pills in half, perhaps by recommendation of a doctor, or perhaps in order to stretch their medication for economic reasons. The complex relationships that exist between the shapes, colors, and forms in the work sync with the complicated relationships between the conditions and medications referenced in the title.

Integral to the success of this work is the presence of distinctive voids in some of the pill forms. Nicknamed “missing doses,” these pieces activate the vacant, interior spaces with color and light.

Fishman is directly referencing how the transformative power of pharmaceuticals relates to 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, exploring the creative potential of voids and raising questions about what truly is the subject of the work.