A Large Presence Beyond

John Beerman was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and though he was far from the South for much of his career, he returned to Hillsborough, North Carolina, around 2013. Beerman received his art education in Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Mexico, and he has painted landscapes across the United States and Europe.

Perhaps Beerman’s greatest influence for most of his career was the Hudson River School of painters, with which he became very familiar after moving near the river in Nyak, New York. In Beerman’s artworks, the influences of his teachers and his inspirations can be seen right alongside the “smoky” or even “sapphire” qualities associated with the mountains of North Carolina. Like the Luminists of the 19th century, Beerman works outside, or en plein air, even revisiting the same site at the same time of day to create tranquil, mysterious landscapes and portraits.