From the outset of a four decade career, Beverly Fishman has centered her work around the body, probing abstract investigations of disease, identity, and medicine. Since 1999, her oeuvre has propelled towards the latter, delving into the promises of pharmaceuticals as the means for a cure.
Fishman positions the sculptural paintings in Something For The Pain within the concept of polypharmacy—the prescription of multiple medicines to one individual. Glowing fluorescent and smooth matte forms correspond to specific pills as Fishman expertly illustrates the measured precision of an individual’s unique prescription. Geometric fragments are stacked into singular compositions; some segments rendered whole and others fractured to imply partial doses. Parenthetical titles pronounce the works to indicate each ailment meant for treatment.
Both welcoming and unsettling, Fishman’s consistent use of urethane paint on wood lures viewers toward her floating structures; their edges bevel towards the wall, reflecting the neon-painted undersides and creating an artificial glow that mimics a physical light. Both her innate sensibility for color and the sheer scale of the works demand attention that further provokes an interrogation surrounding Big Pharma and one’s relationship to the body and its current environment.
“Listening carefully to the world around her, the artist co-opts the language of painting—line, color, form, texture—and compounds it with the art of medicine—diagnosis, management, and sometimes a cure,” writes Rebecca Hart. “A prolific maker, Fishman traces the evolution of medical and pharmacologic discovery, injecting it with personal and cultural content… Aggregating this information as source material for her ongoing exploration, Fishman’s paintings are bellwethers of the effects of industrialized medicine.”
