Fred Eversley: Black, White, Gray

For more than four decades, Fred Eversley (b. 1941) has produced a singular body of work that considers materials, light, and the optical qualities of shapes and colors as part of a broad investigation of individual perceptual experience. A Brooklyn native and engineer by training, Eversley moved to Los Angeles in 1963 to work in the aerospace industry; four years later, inspired by the burgeoning bohemian culture in Venice Beach, he decided to shift careers and become an artist. This exhibition, curated by Kim Conaty, examines a series of black, white, and gray cast-resin sculptures that Eversley began in the early 1970s. The works have cosmological associations—“stars expanding their energy and becoming black holes, white dwarfs, and neutron stars,” Eversley explained at the time—but also prompt us to consider how we ascribe meaning to color. With their complex optical properties and intimate, human scale, the works both challenge our perception of and create new perspectives on the world.

This exhibition is a collaboration between Art + Practice and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. It is made possible through the generosity of Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida.