Eversley's pioneering use of plastic, polyester resin, and industrial dyes and pigments reflects the technological advances that define the postwar period even as his work reveals the timeless inner workings of the human eye and mind.
Prior to his becoming an artist, Eversley was an engineer who collaborated with NASA and major aerospace companies, designing high-intensity acoustical laboratories, which helped develop his interest in the parabola: the only shape that concentrates all forms of energy to a single focal point. Eversley’s abstract, three-dimensional meditations on color––including the luminous lens-like objects for which he is perhaps best known—entice the viewer to approach, prompting questions about how the biological and optical mechanics of sight determine how we see and understand each other, and communicating a kinetic, palpable sense of the mysterious presence of energy throughout the universe.
Fred Eversley (b. 1941, Brooklyn, New York) is a key figure in the development of contemporary art from Los Angeles during the postwar period. Based in Venice Beach for many years, he synthesizes elements from several art historical movements associated with Southern California, including Light and Space, though his work is the product of a pioneering vision all his own, informed by lifelong studies on the timeless principles of light, space, time, and gravity.
Eversley will be the subject of forthcoming solo exhibitions at the Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California, in 2022 and at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College, Claremont, California, in 2024. He has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts (2017); Art + Practice, Los Angeles (2016); National Academy of Science, Washington, D.C. (1981); Palm Springs Art Museum, California (1977); Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California (1976); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1970). Recent group exhibitions include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power (2017 – 2020, traveled to five venues); Space Shifters, Hayward Gallery, London (2018); and Water & Power, curated by the late Noah Davis, Underground Museum (2018). His work is in the permanent collections of more than three dozen museums throughout the world, including Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Museum of Modern Art, New York; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. David Kordansky Gallery will publish a monograph of his work in 2021. Eversley lives and works in New York
