Excerpt from essay by Dick Goody: Kristin Beaver’s lens-based portraits are as much informed by the painterly exuberance of John Singer Sargent’s virtuoso brushstrokes as by the unabashed lushness of fashion photography. Growing up, the sway of full-color fashion spreads had a powerful allure. Photographic paradigms were the primary portal through which she first conceived the visual power of images. Her formative years were spent in flat, agricultural, central Illinois and the glamour of photography was a window into the commodity fetishistic urbane cosmopolitan world beyond, a seemingly seductive culture fueled by taste, style and an unquenchable desire for novelty. Kristin Beaver soaked this up, becoming something of a connoisseur.