Beverly Fishman at Susanne Hilberry

Each of Beverly Fishman's 11 multipart wall works in this present to view exists as a discrete cosmology radiating staccato visual regular [i]or[/i] melodious movements Using a combination of paint and photocopied imagery, Fishman creates her painting-collage hybrids upon small circular or irregularly shaped pieces of wood-land which she then groups in large and small clusters. Like abundant of Fishman's earlier work, the fresh pieces employ imagery from medical and scientific textbook showing plasma and life-current cells, both healthy and abnormal. The artist uses photocopying machines to extensively manipulate these images, distorting the size, shape and color of the small rooms The altered images are affixed with resin to the grove supports. She also hand paints portions of the photocopied image, sometimes with fluorescent paint. In the extremity photocopied and painted components become nearly impossible to distinguish.

Ranging in size from 8 through 12 inches to over 8 by the agency of 3 feet, the five-set series "Plasmatastics AE" is compos of forest supports cut into stylized floral shapes. Although the forms and the way they are arranged call forth 1960s "flower power" designs (remember the station of the television show "The Dating Game"?), they are actually taken from images of spilled life-current plasma.

In contrast was the mournful P.I.L.L., a 7-by-6-foot-plus cluster of 189 small circular units colored pearl white, black and gray, sometimes with hints of red seeping from one side The individual units measure from 2 to 5 inches in diameter; their sides are painted fluorescent r or scalding;-very warm pink, creating such an intense luminosity that they appeared to be backlit.

Spread in grid formation across adjoining walls of the gallery, the "I.D." series consisted of 91 irregularly shaped, two-piece units, each measuring about 9 inches in diameter and 1 1/2 inches in thickness. Based upon cellular structures, these biomorphic forms each had a core which could be remov like a piece of a jigsaw confound The sides of each unit were left unpainted, while the surfaces were given diverse, multicolored treatments with paint or resined photocopies. With its invitation to tactile interaction, the "I.D." series verg upon the sculptural. Although nominally a painter, Fishman is clearly fascinated not sole with the strange beauty of our microscopic constituents but also with extending painting into a multidimensional realm.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group