Beverly Fishman’s abstract paintings explore the complex and cryptic graphic imagery of pharmaceutical and medical technology. Each painting an artistic appropriation of EKG, EEG, neuron spike readouts and genetic code graphs which she stencils, silkscreens and occasionally restates with cut vinyl onto polished aluminium panels.
Many of these paintings are concerned directly with a pharmacological directive to divide dosage called ‘Dividose’ while others incorporate basic colour schemas that highlight the recognizable three letter genetic codon, such as AUG, ACG, etc.
Fishman’s use of the language of pharmacology and medical technology reminds us of how we, as a society, have our lives determined by these pharmaceutical and medical graphs – they are, in short, almost fetishised in our technological world. We are bought and sold by pharmaceutical companies. We rely on them for everything. Their science, rationality, and above all economic reasoning, has become ubiquitous.
The work itself is beautiful, her formal abstractions and use of polished, reflecting panels reminiscent of Rothko, Robert Smithson and Gerhard Richter’s glass and enamel paintings from the early 1990’s. They operate on two levels; as a formal, intellectualized op art painting as well as a reminder that we are ignorant of the developments in medical technology, of the strides made in genetics and our total reliance on scientists and businessmen in the role of health, an area that is of contention in most states on the planet.