Departmental Philosophy
Artist In Residence
Current Student Work

 

Beverly Fishman

Artist-in-Residence Beverly Fishman


Beverly Fishman is Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Painting Department. For the past twenty-five years she has worked as a full-time artist and has dedicated herself to educating young artists. She received her MFA degree from Yale University in 1980 and accepted her first position as adjunct Associate Professor in the Graduate Art School of the College of New Rochelle, New York, in 1983. Fishman began teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore in 1988 and continued both positions until accepting the appointment as Artist-in-Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1992.

Since 2000, Fishman has been the subject of over a dozen one-person exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Thessaloniki. Her work has also been featured in a number of group exhibitions dealing with color, conceptual and cultural concerns, technology, and medication, including: "Infinitesimal Eternity: Making Images in the Face of Spectacle", at Yale University's 32 Edgewood Gallery in New Haven, CT; "Michigan Masters Invitational" at the Kresge Art Museum in East Lansing, MI; "2007 Op Art: Then and Now," at the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; "Optical Edge," at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York, curated by Robert C. Morgan; "Extreme Abstraction," at the Galerie Jean-Luc et Takako Richard, 2006; "Dreaming of a More Better Future," at the Cleveland Art Institute Gallery, 2005; "Post-Digital Painting," at Cranbrook Art Museum, 2003; "Colorforms," at the Detroit Artists Market, 2001; "Made," at Post gallery in Los Angeles, 2001; "Go Ask Alice, Post, Los Angeles, 2000; "Prime Focus," at Illinois State University, Normal, IL, 1998; "Techno Seduction," at Cooper Union Galleries in New York, 1997; "Colors, Contrasts and Cultures", at the Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, CT; and "Technology Culture," at the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA, 1996.

Ms. Fishman has received numerous grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2005, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2003, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant in 1989, two Artist Space Grants in 1986 and 1990, and a Ford Foundation Grant in 1979.

Her teaching experience and professional activities include lectures, panel discussions, and participation as Visiting Artist at many museums and institutions throughout the country, including the Yale School of Art, Washington University, Eastern Illinois State University, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Bethel University, Northwestern College, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, the Philadelphia College of Art, the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the University of New Haven, the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Yale University Summer Program in Art, Oberlin College, Kent State University, Goucher College, University of Delaware, University of Alabama, and Maryland Institute College of Art.

Her work may be found in more than a dozen museum and corporate collections, including: the Miami Art Museum, the Progressive Art Collection in Ohio; the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio; the Borusan Center for Culture and Arts in Istanbul, Turkey; the Hallmark Collection in Missouri; the Toledo Art Museum in Ohio; the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois; UBS Financial Services in Michigan; the Detroit Institute of Arts; the Stamford Museum and Nature Center; the United Nations Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey; the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan; Compuware World Headquarters; Daimler; Prudential Headquarters in Newark, New Jersey; the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan; and the Financial Management Corporation in Chicago.

 

 

 


Beverly Fishman's Pill Spill at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion

Cranbrook Academy of Art is pleased to announce that Pill Spill, an installation by Beverly Fishman, Head of Painting, is now on view at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion. Pill Spill contains more than 120 original glass capsules, ranging in size from 6 to 15 inches, placed in the glass-enclosed spaces along the Museum's Parkwood Avenue entrance. Fishman's work treats the Glass Pavilion as a “body” by releasing capsules into the curved glass hollows between its exterior and interior glass walls, transforming them into an architectural circulatory system. The installation was created as part of the Museum’s Guest Artist Pavilion Project (GAPP). As the 2010 GAPP Artist-in-Residence, Fishman worked with Glass Pavilion staff to execute her vision.

For more than 20 years, Fishman’s largely abstract work has explored our relationship to science and medicine in a variety of media. Mixing optical patterns with vibrant colors and representational elements taken from pharmaceutical and scientific imaging systems, her paintings, sculptures, and works on paper raise questions about the relationship between technology, our bodies, and our minds. The capsule is used in this installation as an abstract module through which constantly changing color and pattern combinations are created. As fragile objects placed on the floor, the installation contests the preciousness of the material. The strewn and accumulated configurations help blur the boundaries between interior and exterior spaces.

Fishman, who has led the Painting Department at the Academy since 1992, will talk about her work with Glass Pavilion and curatorial staff during a panel discussion at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 16 in the Museum’s GlasSalon. It is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the Toledo Museum of Art website.

 


Beverly Fishman
Dividose B.W.P., 2011, enamel on steel, 60"x84"

 


Beverly Fishman
A Weeks Supply, 2011, blown glass


Beverly Fishman
Night View of Pharmako Installation
Unique cast resin with pigment

 


Beverly Fishman
Untitled, 2009, Acrylic and enamel paints on polished stainless steel, each 26"x18"



Upcoming Exhibitions

 

Recent Exhibitions

Recent Press


"DIA Gets Dose of Big Pharma"
John Corso, Huffington Post

"Praxis Makes Perfect | Trial & Error: On Teaching with Beverly Fishman"
Jacquelyn Gleisner, Art:21 Blog

Beverly Fishman: Future Natural
 David Richard Contemporary

“Addict” Glass Pills by Beverly Fishman
Artstormer

"Beverly Fishman Deceptive Pleasures"
Donald Kuspit, Artnet

The Art World Goes Local"
Kelly Crow, The Wall Street Journal

 

Recent Awards and Residencies

 

Collections

 

Upcoming & Recent Lectures

 

Selected Bibliography 

 

 

BF 3
Beverly Fishman
Night Kandyland, 2009, Acrylic and enamel paints on polished stainless steel, 55¾”x84”
Collection of the Toledo Art Museum, Toledo, OH

 

 

BF 5
Beverly Fishman
Pharmako Series, 2008-2009, Cast resin (unique) with pigments, each 9.5" - 10.5"

 

 


Beverly Fishman
Dividose: Flour Y.O.R.G.B., 2008, Enamel on polished stainless steel, 55¾”x84”
Collection of Hallmark Inc., Kansas City, MO