"Poems resonate with my more fractured way of thinking through painting. I've seen my work over the years giving into my whims of the moment: the environment I am in, my emotional state, the weather, and landscape, and all of these are fleeting and in many ways psychological. My work is very much about perceived reality, which is irregular, intangible, and constantly shifting. I love that in poetry, language itself, despite seeming concrete, becomes fluid in this way."
In January 2021, Lighthouse Works, a nonprofit arts organization devoted to providing artists with space and time, free from material concerns, to do their best creative work on Fishers Island, New York; announced that UT Assistant Professor in Studio Art Beverly Acha would be their inaugural artist-in-residence. Acha is a previous Lighthouse Works Fellow and her 2021 residency will entail piloting a long-form version of the Lighthouse Works Fellowship Program, which seeks to deepen past-fellows engagement with their work on Fishers Island.
When asked about plans for her work during the residency, Acha responded that she was thinking about poetic structure broadly and how that structure could correspond to the shared vocabulary of a group of paintings made in concert. "My work is very much about perceived reality, which is irregular, intangible, and constantly shifting," said Acha. "I love that in poetry, language itself, despite seeming concrete, becomes fluid in this way."
Alongside her residency, Acha is featured in A Subtropical Affair, a Good To Know.FYI exhibition held across three locations in Miami from December 2020 to March 2021. The final segment in the three-part series opened during Miami Art Week, A Subtropical Affair III, was curated by Omar López-Chahoud and features Liene Bosquê, Cara Despain, Amanda Keeley, Cinthia Marcelle and Jamilah Sabur alongside Acha. A Subtropical Affair III explores our social and personal connection to nature and the strained relationship between man and man’s habitat. Through formal and conceptual presentations, the exhibition sheds light on the intersectionality of various threats and systemic dangers we, as a society, pose to the sustainability of local ecosystems and the global environment.
Leaning on memory and personal narrative, the all-female show provides a feminist perspective on viewing ones past and rethinking the future. Through paintings, photographs and multimedia installations, the artists in A Subtropical Affair III question the negotiation between a natural habitat and man-made structures both physical and abstract. The exhibition provides a platform for progressive ideas and dialogue on understanding our society’s trajectory within a greater ecological sphere. A Subtropical Affair III will be on view from February 12 - March 15, 2021.