Beverly McIver Revisited
BEVERLY McIVER. (b. 1962 Greensboro, NC)
INVISIBLE ME, 1999
Oil on canvas
35 ½ x 35 ½ in
Exhibited:
Beverly McIver: Invisible Me. Kent Fine Art. March 3 – April 15,2006
Beverly McIver: Full Circle Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
curated by Kim Boganey., 2023
Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC
Gibbes Museum, Charleston, South Carolina
Literature:
Irving Sandler. Beverly McIver: Invisible Me. New York: Kent Gallery. c 2006
56 pages 23 color plates. ISBN: 1-878607-96-0 ( Front cover)
Kim Boganey. Beverly McIver: Full Circle University of California Press. c 2022.
132 pages. ISBN 978-0520385191. Illustrated
From her first show in New York (2006), McIver’s work attempts to reclaim black identity by incorporating stereotypes, and interracial issues into her contemporary interpretation of self:
Black people have struggled to feel comfortable in their skin. We’ve had to deal with the images of Aunt Jemima and the twisted perceptions. I am not the only large and shapely black woman who has had to find a point at which she can feel comfortable. Now it’s celebratory to be a black woman. . .The good news and the bad news is that what issues I have, they come up and come out in the paintings. I was horrified and guilt-ridden, but it was the beginning of the healing process…and the understanding that that’s what it means to be alive and to love someone. All those other things come along with it.
She has received several honors for her work including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award. A documentary about McIver's life entitled Raising Renee was featured on HBO and nominated for an Emmy award.[18] In 2011, McIver was named "top ten in painting" for Art In America magazine a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard University. McIver is currently the Esbenshade Professor of the Practice of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University.
for further information