Tony Foster is a Cornwall-based artist and environmentalist. For 45 years he has painted ‘en plein air’ in the wild places of the world, undertaking expeditions to rainforests, icebergs, deserts and mountains. In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Foster’s watercolours reflect on the forces of nature and change in these wild places, his powers of observation result in work which is both scientifically valuable and sublimely beautiful.
In his major new exhibition, Exploring Time: A Painter’s Perspective, Foster focuses on continuity and transformation in ourselves and the world around us. From the earliest convulsions which formed our planet to fleeting shifts in weather, he poses the question of how our own lifespans relate to both the timeless and the transient.
This touring exhibition, sponsored by The Foster Museum in Palo Alto, California, begins here before heading to the Royal Watercolour Society in London, the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, and other venues across the United States.
Time is relative. The rate at which it passes depends on your frame of reference. In the natural world, a unit of time might be the opening of a flower bud in the sun, the evolution of a Cornish hedge through the seasons, or a river gradually eroding through layers of rock.
Exploring Time is divided into four sections: Geological, Biological, Human and Fleeting.
In ‘Geological Time,’ Foster shows how the history of huge movements of landmasses can be read in the landscape today – from the Himalayas rising from sea level to Dorset’s fossil-rich Jurassic Coast, and Cornwall’s folded granite peninsula threaded with its precious mineral deposits.
Geological Time – Diary Inscriptions
Meanwhile, ‘Biological Time’ follows trees, hedges, meadows and woodland through the cycle of the seasons, for example examining a year in the life of a Cornish hedge, a theme which is echoed in our Nature Gallery. Foster also frames the concept of time through the lives of trees that are hundreds – or even thousands – of years old.
Biological Time – Diary Inscriptions
‘Human Time’ we might think of as a life span, or ‘within living memory’. This section includes Foster’s Lockdown Diaries inspired by daily walks in Cornwall during the pandemic, as well as images of rewilded places exploring how nature and our industrial past interacts in the landscape.
Human Time – Diary Inscriptions
Finally, in the section ‘Fleeting Moments,’ Foster captures brief moments in time, from studies of skies, lightning and weather, to moving water and the appearance of a rainbow. Such moments often hold a disproportionate power – vividly remembered for a lifetime, viscerally connecting us to the natural world, and reminding us of our ephemerality in the context of geological time.
Fleeting Moments – Diary Inscriptions
In each section, watercolours range from small and intimate to larger canvases which immerse the viewer and give a real sense of the epic journeys Foster undertakes. Record-keeping – including maps, annotations and biological specimens – makes tangible the interaction of art and science, form and context.
Exploring Time is a collection of work which is both painstakingly observed and profoundly beautiful; Foster’s confident brushstrokes effortlessly conjuring great detail, betraying an artist who has mastered his medium.
