Beverley Naidus:

"So much mental space and energy are tied up in our daily practices of self-surveillance. With adequate doses of critical thinking about how advertising and the diet and fashion industries work, we could get over our need to look like the dominant culture's cruel view of beauty - a beauty that is physically, emotionally and spiritually unhealthy, as well as bound to surface, conformity, and corporate profit. This radical act, of refusing to stay in that trance, would unleash our creative energies in extraordinary ways.”—Beverly Naidus


Beverly Naidus is a highly established artist, whose list of achievements is long and impressive—several academic degrees, numerous exhibitions at high status galleries, art world recognition. Yet for the Massachusetts-born artist the measure of success is quite different. It involves the effectiveness of using art not as a vehicle for individual achievements, but as a voice in service of social consciousness. Fuelled by her politically active family background, by the ideas of the 70s feminist movement, and by her personal moral convictions, Beverly Naidus has always actively expressed her views about the gap between the American reality and her true vision of what a democratic society should be. After two decades of working in the New York and Los Angeles art worlds, she is currently in Vashon Island, Washington, working with the interdisciplinary Arts and Science Program of the University of Washington with a focus on art for social change and healing. Her web site – “Arts for Change”—reflects the artist’s vision of art as an active and interactive forum for sharing critical views and relating personal experiences. In fact Beverly Naidus has always valued art outside the gallery, in the place where people relate to it, are challenged and engaged by it.

The work presented in “Transitions” is a part of an artist’s book called “The Fat Book,” created by Beverly Naidus in 1982. It was further included in a printed edition of work on body image entitled “One Size Does Not Fit All.” Both books consist of multiple drawings and photo-collages portraying the continued struggle of women with body image and the rebellion against the imposed media standards of “ideal shape.” The books portray in an extremely powerful way the process of transition in the woman’s perceptions of self—the guilt, self-hate, frustration, anger, and final embracing of who she is. The images are honest, direct, and bold. Twenty years later they continue to voice the emotions of all women who have struggled and continue to struggle with the perceptions of their bodies. They also raise the important point that no woman is alone in her emotions, but one of many women going through the same experience. This sense of community that Beverly Naidus’s work creates is both empowering and liberating.