Beverly Fishman American, b. 1955

Beverly Fishman has created provocative, authoritative paintings for the past four decades, transforming historical movements of hard-edge abstractionism through her affrontement of the medical industrial complex. In her practice, Fishman formulates structures alluding to pharmaceutical and medical imaging technologies, displaying these forms as modern extensions of the human condition. Utilizing a variety of mixed media—including wood, paper, glass, blown glass, and aluminum, alongside more irregular mediums such as cast resin, mirrored Plexiglass, and power-colored metal—she provokes a vibrancy that tinges on artificiality, radiating her electrifying aesthetic voice. Her visual language shapes into a physiological meditation, constructing human identity through the depersonalizing approaches of healthcare systems. Fishman’s large-scale works culminate as a critique on our cultural reliance on potentially addictive medications, collapsing the binaries between technological and biological innovations.

Beverly Fishman (b. 1955, Philadelphia, PA) began her academic career by receiving her BFA at Philadelphia College of Art. After enrolling at Yale University, she obtained her MA in 1980. Fishman has exhibited throughout the United States, where her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at The Contemporary Dayton in Dayton, OH, Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago, IL, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing, MI, Walter Storms Galerie in Munich, Germany, SOCO Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Gavlak Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Miles McEnery Gallery in New York, NY, Louis Buhl & Co. in Detroit, MI, Library Street Collective in Detroit, MI, Kravets Wehby Gallery in New York, NY, and CUE Art Foundation in New York, NY. Additionally, Fishman has been featured in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions including the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, NY, Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, Turkey, Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, OH, Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI, Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit, MI, The Drawing Center in New York, NY, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, MI, the National Academy of Design in New York, NY, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, in Overland Park, KS, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, IL, Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC, and White Columns, New York, NY.

Her works are in the permanent collections of numerous private and public institutions, including Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Eli and Edythe Broad Museum, East Lansing, MI; MacArthur Foundation Collection, Chicago, IL; Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI; and Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC. Fishman is the recipient of several awards and grants, including an Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2018), the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Hassam, a Speicher, Betts, & Symons Purchase Award (2010), a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Fine Arts (2005-2006), and a Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (1989-1990). She currently lives and works in Detroit, MI.