Beverly Acha
Nothing Static
September 15 - October 21, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday Sept 15 6-8PM

Deanna Evans Projects is pleased to present Nothing Static, a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York-based artist Beverly Acha. This is her first solo exhibition with the gallery, on view from September 15 to October 21, 2023. 

For Nothing Static Acha presents a group of paintings that explore imagery related to movement and time. In this abstract work, each composition is anchored by ubiquitous symbols representing infinity, cyclicality, and change, such as pinwheels, infinity signs, spirals, and hourglasses. Each painting seems to be alive, but temporarily paused. The stillness of the painted image invites the viewer to imagine both its before and after, which creates a sense of time and the possibility of inferred narrative. 

Shapes in Acha’s work become characters in these narratives. Circles operate as nodes, suns, voids, eyes, or marbles moving through, responding to, or exerting force in the space of the paintings. Petal shapes refer to flowers reaching or pinwheels spinning. Lines demarcate space or the shape of a device that cannot be named. These gestures ground the work in the organic and natural world. Conversely, Acha’s exploration of rich, bright color and geometric shapes pushes some of the work into the realm of diagrams, machines, and the built environment. 

Influenced by science fiction’s ability to employ the uncanny to build worlds that challenge our reality and the systems we accept as static, Acha’s work can be approached as a type of world building for a more internal and felt landscape. The sensation of fear, the quality of light on a hot summer day, the visceral sensorial memory of being underwater feeling the current move you, or observing a budding flower day after day, become sources for Acha’s work. By extracting shape, color, and form from observations and experiences she creates a set of visual symbols and relations for each body of work. These abstracted forms become familiar and legible as they repeat and shift from painting to painting, while an uneasiness from being unable to name what is seen remains present.

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Beverly Acha (b. 1987, Miami, FL) holds an MFA from Yale University and a BA from Williams College. She has been awarded residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell, The Lighthouse Works, Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, and Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, among others. Acha’s work has been widely exhibited including at the Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM; DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY; Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL; Hesse Flatow, Amagansett, NY; and North Loop, Williamstown, MA. She is the recipient of the Aon-CUE Artist Empowerment Award and her work has been featured in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Diacritics, New American Paintings, and MAKE Magazine. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH; Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art Roswell, NM; and Soho House, London, UK.