In Conversation with Beverly Fishman

Beverly Fishman appropriates the forms of pharmaceuticals, fragmenting and recombining their shapes into larger assemblages that evoke our complex relationships to sickness and health. The Detroit-based painter treats color as a material, one that can trigger sensations of taste, smell, mood and emotion. We spoke with Beverly about making editions in pairs, the promises hidden in titles like Calm, Longevity and Self Determination, and her collaboration with master printer Phil Sanders at PS Marlowe Studios. Her editions are available now, exclusively on Haystack.

Your Haystack editions come in pairs: Calm, Longevity and Self Determination. Why did you want to make each one as a pair, and do you see them as a conversation between two works?

I like making pairs because I often have two different color ideas for the same composition, and I want to see how both possibilities play out. Color can completely transform the emotional and psychological impact of a form. By presenting the works together, I create a conversation between them, allowing viewers to experience how the same image can produce different sensations through color alone.

The titles Calm, Longevity and Self Determination all sound like promises made by medicine and wellness culture. How did you choose them, and what do you want viewers to feel when they read the title next to the image?

I’m interested in the promises that medicine and wellness culture make to us: promises of calm, longevity and control over our own bodies and lives. I want my prints to have something like a placebo effect, where the expectation of a positive outcome can actually produce a psychological or even physiological response. Through color and form, I hope to create a similar experience, where looking at an artwork might make you feel some of the benefits its title promises.

You worked with master printer Phil Sanders at PS Marlowe Studios in Asheville across several editions. How did the collaboration change from one project to the next?

We began by making a large-scale print and then moved to a smaller format that incorporated relief. That shift was exciting because it allowed us to bring something sculptural into the printmaking process. Working with Phil, I became increasingly interested in how a print could function not simply as an image on paper but as an object with its own physical presence.

Your paintings and wall works are known for glossy, engineered surfaces. How did you translate that sense of polish and artificial color into paper and ink?

I wasn’t interested in reproducing the glossy surfaces of my paintings and wall works. Instead, I wanted to focus on color and explore what was distinctive about printmaking as a medium. Each medium has its own possibilities, and I think it’s important to work with those rather than simply imitate effects I’ve achieved elsewhere. The prints allowed me to approach familiar questions about color, form and perception in a different way.

Interested in adding a Beverly Fishman edition to your collection? Her paired editions Calm, Longevity and Self Determination are available now, exclusively on Haystack. Click here to learn more about Beverly Fishman.