Library Street Collective presents Zenax, a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Beverly Fishman and Gary Lang. Fishman’s masterfully crafted three-dimensional paintings appear formal, yet discuss a very serious, prevailing complication within the medical field. Inspired by medical pills, Fishman is holding a lens over the pharmaceutical industry - simultaneously praising and criticizing it. Lang’s work is the result of a meditative, yet meticulous process of pattern-creation through movement, feeling, and physics. With an underlying understanding of color spectrums and intuitive rendering of patterns, he manipulates hues to imbue his work with spirit and energy.
LSC’s new smaller exhibition space is hospital white, sterile and it echoes. The pieces in this show explode off the walls with striking palettes in sharply constructed shapes. The title of the show is a portmanteau of the words ‘Zen’ and ‘Xanax’ communicating the artists’ interest in calm and stability, albeit one avenue is artificial while the other pursues a natural path.
Fishman’s work has been addressing disease, cure and placebo since the late ‘80s. The more she researched, the more she “became alarmed by the over-prescribing of medicines and the power of Big Pharma to expand and colonize ever new areas of our bodies and minds.” She began expressing this through glossy oversized replicas of pills. Those have since morphed into 3D paintings which continue to incorporate recognizable shapes of regularly prescribed medications.
In Untitled (depression, depression, adhd), the supersized pills are halved or quartered from their dispensed forms, then rearranged into wall sculpture. Fishman’s intentional color combinations in a hot fluorescents create a visual vibration as the eye struggles to interpret the assault. Her palette is as jarring as the sudden realization of how much medication we’re really ingesting.
Untitled (high blood pressure, depression, antipsychotic, depression, anxiety)—whew, the title alone gives me anxiety—is nicely structured employing cutouts, granting additional dimension. The slick finish is perhaps a metaphor for promised results.
Lang’s work uses a softer coloration but still confuses the eye in its patterned presentation. I definitely got that ‘look into my eyes’ sensation from ATTICUS, as the colors swirl, turn and pulse. It does unbalance the mind in that it could cause a viewer to reassess perspective on their occupied space and what’s contained in it.
Both of these artists offer work that is rendered in definitive shapes and strong colors. Both series are hypnotic and impossible to ignore in this Kubrick-like environment. Fishman and Lang’s approach to a theme is drastically different yet share a universal message of the human desire to find peace.
On view through January 6th at Library Street Collective 1260 Library Street, Detroit
*images are mine
direct quote from gallery statements
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