Beverly Buchanan is an African-American artist whose works include painting and sculpture.
Background
Buchanan was born in Fuquay, North Carolina, but grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where her father was dean of the School of Agriculture at South Carolina State College, which was then the only state school for African Americans in South Carolina.
Education
In 1962 Buchanan graduated from Bennett College, a historically black women"s college, in Greensboro, North Carolina with a degree in medical technology.
Career
Buchanan is noted for her exploration of Southern vernacular architecture through her art She went on to attend Columbia University, where she received a master"s degree in parasitology in 1968 and a master"s degree in public health in 1969. Although she was accepted to medical school, Buchanan decided not to go due to her desire to dedicate more time to her art
Buchanan decided to become a full-time artist in 1977 after exhibiting her work in a new talent show at Betty Parsons Gallery In the same year, she moved to Macon, Georgia.
Buchanan has created drawings, sculpture, prints, and photos. In 1976 and 1977, Buchanan drew "black walls" on paper.
She "wanted to see what the wall looked like on the other side" and put four walls together in three dimensions. In the same year, she moved to Macon, Georgia.
She then began to sculpt in cement.
Buchanan is best known for her body of work on the “shack,” an elemental structure that houses the have-nots of society. She treats shacks not as documentary rebuffs but instead as images of endurance and personal history. She makes the simple, rustic, dilapidated house the subject of many paintings and sculptural constructions treated with bright colors or childlike simplicity.