Despite her lifelong identity as an artist, as an educated African-American woman, Beverly Buchanan felt a strong sense of social commitment that manifested itself in her work, until the age of 37, as a health educator. She received a bachelor's degree in medical technology from Bennett College in North Carolina and two masters’ degrees from Columbia University, fully expecting to later attend medical school. It was while working as a health educator in East Orange, New Jersey that she finally decided to dedicate herself completely to her art. She left the Northeast and moved to Georgia, where she has lived ever since, first in Macon, then Atlanta, and now Athens.

Buchanan works in a variety of media, including sculpture, drawing, painting, and photography. She photographs old, rickety shacks and then reconstructs them out of the materials available to her. At first, the shacks seemed evocative of family, friends, and memories; only later did she photograph the structures entirely for their aesthetic appeal. In addition to the art pieces themselves, she creates colorful histories for the industrious individuals who inhabit them. Her shacks honor the tenacity and creativity of the inhabitants themselves.

Beverly Buchanan’s numerous honors include two 1980 fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, a 1990 fellowship in sculpture from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, Georgia Women in the Visual Arts Honoree Award, and a Distinguished Alumni Citation Award from Bennett College. She was Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Macon, Georgia in 1984, and in 2003, she was Visiting Artist at Spring Island, South Carolina.