BEVERLY MCIVER, Entangled #1, 2024 (oil on canvas, 60 x 96 inches / 152.4 x 243.8 cm). | © Beverly McIver
ARTISTS OFTEN SPEAK about the need be seen, represented, and have a voice. Beverly McIver (b. 1962) takes it a step further. She is candid and transparent about her life’s journey and acknowledges in her work real moments of despair and feeling overwhelmed and “entangled” by the challenges and complexities of everyday life, including depression, illness, and death.
The artist often shares her backstory. Born in Greensboro, N.C., McIver and her two sisters were raised by a single mother who worked multiple domestic jobs to support the family. She lived in public housing, grew up on welfare, and earned an MFA from Pennsylvania State University. Today, McIver divides her time between her art practice and teaching at Duke University, where she is a professor of the Practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. She also takes care of her older sister who is developmentally disabled, a commitment she made to her dying mother.
Berry Campbell announced its representation of McIver last year. “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” her first solo exhibition with the gallery, presents 20 paintings, including self-portraits and images of her family, friends, neighbors, and mentor Faith Ringgold (1930-2024). Alive with color, the dynamic and emotional portraits explore vulnerability, dignity, childhood joy and various aspects of individuality, self-acceptance, and otherness. The title of the exhibition derives from a series of self-portraits, concerning images in which the artist appears to be nearly strangled by chords or ropes densely wrapped around her head or conversely hiding and seeking refuge under a what looks like a large fishing net.
In a statement about the exhibition, McIver said: “The commonality is the human part, I think people are just refreshed to see somebody telling the truth, being authentic.” She also described her experiences and where she has arrived in life as “this great gift of sharing your voice and offering it as sort of a hug to what it means to be a human being and what it means to suffer.” CT
“Beverly McIver: Entangled” is on view at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., from Oct. 17-Nov. 16, 2024
FIND MORE about the exhibition
Artist Beverly McIver in her North Carolina Studio with paintings featured in the exhibition. | Photo by Samantha Everette. Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View of “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2024. Shown, At right, BEVERLY MCIVER, | Photo by Adam Reich, Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View of “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2024. | Photo by Adam Reich, Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View of “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2024. | Photo by Adam Reich, Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View of “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2024. | Photo by Adam Reich, Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View of “Beverly McIver: Entangled,” Berry Campbell Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2024. | Photo by Adam Reich, Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
Installation View, Beverly McIver: Entangled at Berry Campbell. Photo by Adam Reich.
Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York
FIND MORE about Beverly McIver on her website, Instagram, and in “Raising Renee,” an HBO documentary about caring for her sister
BOOKSHELF
“Beverly McIver: Entangled” was published to accompany the artist’s current exhibition at Berry Campbell gallery in New York. “Beverly McIver: Full Circle” documents the Beverly McIver’s recent traveling exhibition organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and includes contributions by Richard J. Powell and Michele Faith Wallace.
