After decades of being known for quiet, luminous landscapes, Hillsborough painter John Beerman has entered a new era, one driven less by observation than by memory. The large-scale works now filling Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, on view through January 17, mark a decisive shift for an artist whose career has long been associated with a contemplative calm.
For much of his career, Beerman’s practice was rooted in direct engagement with place. He painted outdoors across the United States and abroad, translating field sketches into studio canvases that explored light, weather, and landscape. That work earned him national recognition, including exhibitions at major museums, placement in prominent public and private collections, and a reputation as one of North Carolina’s most respected painters.
But after years of working that way, the process stopped feeling generative.
“There wasn’t a thunderclap,” Beerman said. “Just a growing sense that I needed to let go.”
What followed was a radical pivot both artistically and financially. Instead of planned compositions and preparatory studies, Beerman began painting without a map. As Beerman tells it, his new process involved unrolling canvases more than 7 feet tall, tacking them to his studio walls or laying them out on the floor, working directly and intuitively. Multiple paintings developed at once, over months.
“The painting became the sketch,” said Beerman.
The resulting works are dense, vibrant, and emotionally charged. Faces appear and disappear; symbols hover; fragments of memory surface without explanation. Color and gesture collide in ways that feel urgent and unresolved.
Figures are obscured, embedded into abstract structures, so they don’t dominate the composition. And while the source material is often personal—with family members and childhood images making paint-covered cameos—Beerman resists an autobiographical label.
“I’m not interested in people knowing my family history,” he said. “I’m hoping the paintings speak to something shared, a common humanity.”
Memory is the connective tissue in these works. “Ark” feels like a page lifted from a vintage children’s book, carrying the thrill of rediscovering a childhood artifact tucked away in an attic. It is an impression shaped more by remembrance than by story.
Beerman likens the process to the way recollection actually works through serendipity, luck, and messiness. That sensibility extends to his renewed use of techniques learned early in life, including kindergarten experiments with tissue paper, wax resist, and layering colors. These are methods that explore more than control the artistic process.
The shift carried real reputational risk. Beerman’s longtime audience knew him for tranquil landscapes, and galleries rely on that predictability to survive. A sudden change in direction can jeopardize sales, relationships, and momentum built over decades.
“When artists take risks, there’s no guarantee people will follow,” said Craven Allen owner John Craven Bloedorn. “I have employees to pay. You don’t make these decisions lightly.”
Yet the gamble paid off. The exhibition has drawn the strongest response of Beerman’s career, with major works selling before the show even opened. The energy in the gallery, Bloedorn said, has been palpable.
“It’s not the same show as last year or the year before,” he said. “It’s a new phase, and people want to be part of that.”
For Beerman, the response is gratifying but secondary. What matters more is the sense of wonder he felt making the work and the hope that viewers carry some of that with them when they leave.
“I’d like them to feel something essential,” he said. “Something that isn’t verbal. Something human.”
Beerman sees painting as a different kind of communication, one closer to music or literature than explanation. Art, he believes, still has the capacity to connect people where words fall short.
That belief also shapes the advice he offers young artists: Trust your instincts, resist imitation, and stay faithful to what feels true.
“Sing your song,” he said. “Because nobody else can.”
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