Beverly Acha (26), Cold Plunge

Lighthouse Works is pleased to present cold plunge, a show of paintings and drawings created by Beverly Acha during the six months she was on island as our inaugural Artist-in-Residence.

Beverly Acha’s practice has long been connected to the places in which she paints. The quote above from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar illuminates this sensitivity to place. In fact, Acha has had this quote knocking around her studio since she spent her initial fellowship here back in 2017 and first read the novel. This idea of how light changes a space and in turn changes time and reality is central to Acha’s work. The specific winter light out on the island has seeped into these paintings, submerging them into the sound. They appear underwater, light filtering through the shifting blues, the shifting depths.

The pastel drawings in the show serve as a warm counterpoint. They are fiery at times,
more playful—connected to botanical imagery. Their scale and medium gives them a
certain intimacy. They feel like small pocket fires, moments to warm your hands while swimming through the show. They fold, droop and bloom into view. And the largest painting, apariciónes, blooms (fenómeno azulado II) is where both these worlds meet. The layers of blue break way to a large purple bloom. The painting is dotted by small orbs, little lights that float across the surface, delicately rendered. This painting has an optimism to it, the fiery complex interior springs forth from the vast blue like a crocus in March.

Cold Plunge is a brisk and moving show that closes out our year at Lighthouse Works. We feel it is the splash of frigid water that we need to face the New Year.