Loveseats is a series of six A4 digitally printed works on graph paper, that playfully combine traced line drawings and photography, created using scanning, digital collage and print. The work was inspired by research into Shunga, a form of Japanese erotica from the Ukiyo-E period (17th – 19th Century).

Year: 2000
Exhibitions: ‘Best in Show – The Embassy Members’ Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2004); ‘MEGAREAL’ K3 Project Space, Zurich, Switzerland (2002); ‘synthetic’ The Globe Gallery, North Shields, England (2002); ‘synthetic’ The Proposition Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland (2001); ‘NEO’ Waygood Gallery, Newcastle, England (2000); ‘Prints 97 – 99’ Andrew Grant Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (2000)

The Loveseats print series was inspired by an international artist in residency programme that Beverley took part in, at the Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Yamaguchi, Japan, in 2000. As part of the residency, Beverley undertook research into Japanese representations of physicality, erotica and intimacy; visiting shrines, museums, interviewing local people and working with artefacts. The Loveseats sets of prints was inspired by Shunga, a form of Japanese erotica from the Ukiyo-E period (17th – 19th Century). Beverley was given access to a historical Shunga scroll through the local Akiyoshidai community, a family heirloom past between generations functioning both as erotica and sexual instruction.  

The original Shunga drawings documented and transcribed by Beverley as simple line drawings, which were then digitised. The resulting digital line drawings were then overlaid and composited through a process of digital collage, with key modernist furniture, scanned from design publications, which were indicative of the exclusive furnishings she was surrounded by at the Akiyoshidai International Art Village residence. The digital collages were then printed as a small series of A4 archival inkjet prints.

The Loveseats series playfully brings together a contradictory combination of historical and contemporary, eastern and western aesthetics and cultures. Prints from the series are held in private collections in the UK and Switzerland (further prints are available to purchase on request from the artist).