What do you imagine when you think of home? When asked this question in 2011, the artist Beverly Buchanan spoke of nature. “Plants, weather, colors (of everything—trees, birds, dirt) and design. I like the designs of trees,” she said, then added, “and especially buildings.” Born in South Carolina, Buchanan became an artist at 37, when she enrolled at New York’s Art Students League, where she found liberation in the principles of abstraction. Upon returning to the South, she began using organic elements to conjure a sense of home in landscape paintings, which comprise most of Buchanan’s opus. A smaller yet widely lauded body of work—the “shack” series—would explore the idea of belonging, as well as her African-American heritage, through sculptures of cabins and huts (fashioned from cardboard and found wood), and through photographs and drawings. This exhibition celebrates the shack works—so evocative of memory, tradition, and domestic life—and includes rarely seen source images that Buchanan used in her research of home. —C.J.F.
The Arts Intel Report
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
Beverly Buchanan: Shacks and Legends, 1985-2011
When
Mar 20 – May 1, 2021
Where
Etc
Beverly Buchanan, “Blue Sky Shack,” 1988. Courtesy of Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York.