NOTABLE MEDIA & PUBLICATIONS
Russ Campbell, Hillsborough Artist John Beerman Changes Course, INDY Week, January 8, 2026.
Liza Roberts, John Beerman’s Gateway to Mysteries, WALTER Magazine, 2024.
Ian Gabriel Wilson, Imminent Perils: To Wonder at Trifles in the Paintings of John Beerman, Blowing Rock Art & History Museum / Goosepen Studio & Press, 2022.
Nancy Oakley, Lightcatcher, O. Henry Magazine, January 2019.
Liza Roberts, John Beerman, WALTER Magazine, May 2016.
Reynolds Price, Strokes of Genius, Garden & Gun, February/March 2010.
Laura Joseph Mogil, Illuminating the Hudson, Hudson Valley Magazine, June 2009.
John A. Parks, John Beerman: Light, Restraint, and Clarity, American Artist, June 2007.
EXHIBITION ARCHIVE
New Works
November 22, 2025 - January 17, 2026
John Beerman, long celebrated for his expressive landscapes, has established himself as a distinctive figure in contemporary painting both in North Carolina and beyond. In his new work, Beerman makes a decisive turn toward abstraction with large-scale paintings that chart “jagged and mysterious paths,” signaling a bold shift in his evolving practice.
While Beerman’s landscapes are imbued with an unmistakable sense of place, these new works turn inward, entering “a psychic space that is by turns surprising, playful, difficult, and deeply rewarding.” Elements of collage and subtle figures surface within the canvases, offering hints of the familiar even as the work moves fully into abstraction. Rooted in curiosity and transformation, the paintings invite viewers to share in the mystery and wonder that fuel his exploration.
Beerman begins each painting with sections of color applied freely, and the composition evolves as a continuing effort to balance contrasting elements. “The process is guided by intuition, unfolding slowly, until an image takes form” says Beerman.
New Works is at once a departure and a homecoming, where Beerman’s unmistakable technique converges with daring new forms on canvas. His command of light, color, and layered space remains evident, even as the work embraces greater openness and unpredictability.
STATEMENT
I believe artists are, in their own way, working to heal a broken world. My work is an effort to imagine and translate the transcendental—to search for the heart of the matter, something beneath the surface, where truth resides. In my recent paintings, I’ve begun to allow more of the unknown to guide me, deliberately cultivating an expansive inner world. It feels like putting on headphones and entering a psychic space that is by turns surprising, playful, difficult, and deeply rewarding. I am singing my song—translating it into color and form. The song reshapes itself again and again until it reveals an expression I could not have anticipated. I go where there is no roadmap, opening pathways to new possibilities.
Each painting begins with color, laid down freely, almost as a first breath. From there, a dialogue emerges—hard against soft, cool against warm, opaque against translucent—an attempt to unify opposites. The process is guided by intuition, unfolding slowly, until an image takes form. If the work succeeds, it resonates with a mystery that feels both discovered and inevitable.
Seen and Unseen: Paintings of North Carolina and Normandy
November 11, 2023 - January 6, 2024
In Seen and Unseen, renowned painter John Beerman brings together new work created both at home here in North Carolina, and abroad in Normandy, France. “To see freshly, to discover something luminous below the surface of the commonplace is my challenge,” says John Beerman. “By laying down paint on canvas, I try to represent a moment in time with its subtle order and its specific nuances of color and light.”
Perfect lighting conditions can be fleeting, so Beerman will often revisit a location for days in a row at an appointed time to create small plein air studies. These studies are then taken back to his studio, where he spends months translating them into large-scale paintings. Experimentation and discovery are at the core of Beerman’s artistic practice. Paint is applied and removed, layers are created, covered and then perhaps unearthed later. “I believe there is a lifeforce in the materials I work with” says Beerman. Embracing the life and will of his materials and combining that with his own vision for a painting leads to the landscapes for which he is so well known.
Beerman has long had a presence on the national stage, and his work can be found in the collections of some of the most prominent American institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art. Closer to home, his Three Trees, Two Clouds is an icon of the North Carolina Museum of Art’s collection. This is John Beerman’s fourth show at Craven Allen Gallery; he spent much of his career in New York, and now resides in Hillsborough.
STATEMENT
“Art is a fusion of the real outside, and that which is inside us”
Edith Schloss
I observe closely the “real outside,” stay attuned to “that which is inside” and venture to make paintings based on that overlap. While constructing and shaping an image, I am using the visible world, material and cultural knowledge, intuition and temperament as my guide. The work, the labor, is to bring a painting to the surface that represents a fusion of that rich material.
Every painting is an adventure, and as such, it often goes through many changes— paint applied, paint scrapped off, the surprise of pentimento— before arriving at a place that seems to be somewhere I didn’t know I was looking to go. The finished painting feels like finding something both forgotten and essential. I would like my paintings to communicate something of that discovery and to convey deep good feeling.
Patterns of the Passing Wall
November 13, 2021 - January 29, 2022
John Beerman’s iconic landscapes are found in major museums and collections across the country; his Three Trees, Two Clouds is one of the signature paintings at the North Carolina Museum of Art. “I have always found the natural world a gateway to the greater mysteries and meanings of life,” says Beerman of his work.
The title of the show, Patterns of the Passing Wall, is taken from a quote by Vladimir Nabokov: “In a sense we are all crashing to death from the top story of our birth to the flat stones of the churchyard and wondering with an immortal Alice in Wonderland at the patterns of the passing wall.” Beerman is in wonder of the moments we experience on our journey, seeking to capture these ephemeral images in paint.
Many of the landscapes show his native North Carolina, from coastal Hyde County in the east, to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west. All the works begin as plein air studies which are refined in the studio, and feature the intricate brushwork and subtle color harmonies for which the artist is well-known. This is John Beerman’s third show at Craven Allen Gallery; he spent much of his career in New York, and now lives in Hillsborough.
STATEMENT
“In a sense we are all crashing to death from the top story of our birth to the flat stones of the churchyard and wondering with an immortal Alice in Wonderland at the patterns of the passing wall. This capacity to wonder at trifles no matter the imminent peril, these asides of the spirit, these footnotes in the volume of life are the highest forms of consciousness, and it is in this childishly speculative state of mind, so distant from commonsense and its logic, that we know the world to be good.”
--Vladimir Nabokov
This passage by Nabokov, says it all to me. He is describing what I do as an artist, in wonder of the patterns on the passing wall.
In my studio, I experience wonder, indecision, construction, destruction, fervent belief in what I’m painting one day and unknowing the next. One day’s certainty is fleeting, and the next day needs a different color, or more brushstrokes. Some days don’t offer any movement at all, but I search for it in paint. It’s plodding with a few moments of clarity, and these moments of clarity are so evanescent. At the end of the day, I have looked at the landscape (my passing wall), brushed paint on canvas and hope that it communicates some of the wonder I cannot put into words.
The Shape of Light
November 16, 2019 - January 25, 2020
“I have always found the natural world a gateway to the greater mysteries and meanings of life,” says John Beerman of the work in The Shape of Light, which features the intricate brushwork and subtle color harmonies for which the artist is well-known. “Whether through landscape or the human form, I try to find ways to bring forth light and life.” The show includes scenes from Italy, and across North Carolina from the coast to the mountains, as well as intimate portraits ranging from quiet studies to a monumental nude. Several paintings depict the countryside around Chatwood in Hillsborough, and Bramasole in Cortona, Italy, homes of the writer Frances Mayes, where Beerman finds inspiration. The artist lives in Hillsborough; his iconic paintings are found in major museums and collections across the country.
STATEMENT
I have always found the natural world a gateway to the greater mysteries and meanings of life. As a painter, I find that nature is essential to understanding the challenges our world is facing–a source of strength, and a reminder of what we are fighting for in these turbulent times. Whether through landscape or the human form, I try to find ways to bring forth light and life. This has always required a respect for silence. The poem Still Water, by Patricia Fargnoli, really speaks to me. As a painter, I, too, drift from each skirmish with the world/to the diplomacy of light. I hope that my paintings invite everyone to experience the power of nature, light, paint and silence. The world will be the world. I am here to paint it.
STILL WATER BY PATRICIA FARGNOLI
“What times are these when a poem about trees is almost a crime because it contains silence against so many outrages.”— Brecht
And why not silence?
Ahead of me, Goose Pond parts pale water
and my canoe slides through into June sun, cathedral quiet,
soft plums of cloud.
A thin gauze of rain stalls over Mt. Monadnock.
This is the way I drift
from each skirmish with the world
to the diplomacy of light
as it flares off the water,
flickers among the flute-notes
of birds hidden in the leaning birches.
Would you condemn me?
I’ve already held the old bodies of grief
long past morning; leave them
to the ministrations
of the dirt-borers
who work what is finished back into the earth.
Some atrocities are beyond redemption–
you know them already–
the world will be the world no matter.
I want the blinding silver of this small pond
to stun my eyes,
the palaver of leaves to stop my ears.
A Field, A World
November 18, 2017 - January 20, 2018
John Beerman’s iconic landscapes are found in major museums and collections across the country. For this show, the North Carolina native has selected paintings with a deep personal resonance from across the state and as far afield as New Mexico and Italy. The exhibition features both large canvases and intimate works on paper, many painted outdoors onsite.
The title of the show, A Field, A World, comes from Beerman’s determination to see beauty close at hand wherever he may be. Many works feature the countryside around Chatwood in Hillsborough, home of Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, where he has stayed recently. Another series shows a church in Hillsborough at various times of day; like Monet and his haystacks, the differences in color and light in each canvas are revealing.
STATEMENT
I find my inspiration in landscapes and in the everyday objects of the world around us. To see freshly, to discover something luminous below the surface of the commonplace is my challenge. By laying down paint on canvas, I try to represent a moment in time with its subtle order and its specific nuances of color and light.
As a painter, I believe there is a life force in the materials I work with, whether its oils, egg tempera or some combination of these. For me, the paint itself tells its own story and my most successful paintings represent something apart from their subject matter. I hope my paintings invite you to see the visible world with new eyes, and to experience the everyday as something luminous.