For two decades, Mark Rediske created his sought-after color field paintings while laying the panel on a flat surface. In Language of Gravity, he experiments instead with painting upright on an easel. The resulting downward pull of the paint enhances Rediske's distillation of skyscape and atmosphere. Alternating between areas of transparency and opacity, the paintings convey the essence of vast expanses of space and light.
Inspired by the geology of the Cascade Mountain range, Sarah Winkler further explores landscape in terms of the distinct layers that she is known for. She depicts the overlapping, collage-like terrain as a textured rise in elevation, with lower and middle elevations covered in coniferous forests, waterfalls, and wildflowers, while higher altitudes evoke meadows, alpine lakes, and glaciers. Winkler mimics the process of erosion by applying paint onto wood panels, then sanding back through layer after layer. Oscillating between abstraction and figuration, she pays close attention to borders, boundaries, and edges. Viewers get a sense of the landscape adapting and transitioning, beckoning toward adventure and exploration.
As he approaches 30 years of exhibiting his vernacular, street-influenced paintings in galleries and museums, Casey McGlynn returns to one of his earliest metaphors in his new collection I Am the Horse. Grazing and at rest, the horses appear in herds and as silhouettes, their interiors filled with a cacophony of symbols and color that bristle with a fervent, raw energy.
When Tony Angell walked into Richard White's office to share his artwork in 1972, it was the beginning of a 50-year journey in art and nature that Foster/White proudly continues to celebrate with Angell's new exhibition of sculptures, Aloft and At Rest. For half a century, Angell's representations of birds have dazzled viewers with scientific accuracy and a virtuoso sense for the inner temperament of his subjects that conveys their intangible spirit and resilience.
Foster/White Gallery announces the debut of Ritual Vessels, a new collection of ceramic sculptures by George Rodriguez. Varying from human faces peering out of animal costumes, to a pack of small dogs, to conjoined and single figures, to planter pots large and small, Ritual Vessels celebrates Rodriguez's vibrant imagination as he nears 20 years as an artist.
Sheri Bakes has been painting the natural world with an ethereal intensity for more than 20 years. Her new collection of landscape paintings draws inspiration from a close friend's challenging circumnavigation of Mt. Rainier on the Wonderland Trail. Highly attuned to atmospheric conditions that border on the non-visual, such as fine mist in the air or thin veils of fog lifting in morning sun, Bakes seeks to represent subtle qualities of being alive and present in time and space.
Foster/White Gallery returns to its series of group exhibitions focused on the classical elements with Elements: Water, featuring a range of media from photography and collage to painting, textile, and sculpture. Following its predecessors Elements: Earth (2020) and Elements: Fire (2021), the latest thematic collection draws from both new and prior work by many of the gallery's artists spread across the North American continent and Australia, including locals Tony Angell, John de Wit, Eva Isaksen, and Cameron Anne Mason. Representations of water alternate from figurative to abstract, and while the color blue is a popular choice, especially for painters, there are wonderful departures from expectation.
Sarah McRae Morton stands with one foot firmly in the tradition of Western figural art and the other in a hauntingly beautiful dreamscape of her own unique imagination. Often referencing literature, natural history, and memory, her paintings convey myth-like narratives that blend reality with dreaming, while highlighting her mastery of paint. McRae Morton's animal menagerie in Fair, Hail includes some of her favorites like whales, boars, and horses as well as some that are less familiar such as alewives, and snow crabs. People in 19th century attire are integrated with the animals often with a sense of blurred movement that the artist is recognized for. Many of the new paintings are presented on panel, and some are as small as 10 x 10 inches, contrasting with the large new canvas of a whale, Fulton's Last Bow.
Quebrada, book with pigment, 5 x 12 x 7 inches
By The End Of The Day, oil on canvas, 12 x 24 inches
Guy Laramée | Quebrada | Thirteen Views on a Stay in Brasil
December 2022 - January 2023
Guy Laramée's longstanding fascination with Brasil inspires his new Foster/White exhibitions, where he probes questions of belonging and estrangement in a series of atmospheric landscape paintings as well as a group of new sculptures sourced from second-hand bookstores in Florianopolis. Often with mountains or coastlines shrouded in mist, the paintings form a loose, narrative sequence closely associated with the ambiguity between dreaming and waking.
Laramée explains the connection between the paintings and book sculptures by focusing on the linen covers of the books: "...the faded jade tones of the fabric inspired most of my palette for the paintings." The poetics of travel weigh on the artist's mind as he studies questions of identity and belonging: "In traveling between cultures – and countries – something is abandoned, perhaps definitely. What is it? Is it the adhesion to one’s sets of beliefs? Is it the dream of finding a 'perfect world'?"
Explo, book with pigment, 8 x 9.5 x 8 inches
"In Portuguese as in Spanish, the word Quebrada has a double meaning. Literally, it means ‘broken’. But it is also used to designate a ravine, where the landscape gives the impression of being sunken down. Unlike my previous book work, I started each piece by breaking the spine of the book – apparently its most sturdy part. So I formed the book into a curved or broken shape before carving it. I was quite aware of the metaphor while working in this new way: breaking a book is obviously damaging the knowledge it contains. What does this say about our world? After two years of pandemic, we may have started to feel that our civilization is fragile. How long will it last? Some of the book titles evoke that: Paraiso Perdido / Paradise Lost, for example. In a way, our civilization is broken. Can it heal itself or is it bound to make room to a new one? But often times, from stark perspectives stem hope and the will to continue. Thus, using the other meaning of the word Quebrada, I carved those ravines into luxurious landscapes, suggesting that in this sinking down, something of life will go on." - Guy Laramée
Entering The Dream, oil on canvas, 12 x 24 inches
"Over fifteen years, I accumulated about three years in Brasil. My last stay lasted six months. This painting project is an opportunity to encapsulate the feelings that draws one to quit one’s culture, the inner experiences triggered by living in a foreign country. The paintings have a light narrative structure around my last trip in 2022. Each painting has a title that situates it within that narrative. From the first one, Entering the Dream, to the last one, Traveling Between Two Dreams, one questions if one ever comes back from those trips. In traveling between cultures – and countries – something is abandoned, perhaps definitely. What is it? Is it the adhesion to one’s sets of beliefs? Is it the dream of finding a “perfect world”? " - Guy Laramée
Fauna Flora Figure 208, mixed media on linen, 40 x 40 inches
Shar Coulson | Rhythmic Reflections: Pursuit of Nature's Pulsing Heart
November 2022
Shar Coulson's exhibition Rhythmic Reflections: Pursuit of Nature's Pulsing Heart distills the essence of the natural world through gestural abstraction, revealing core truths that resist categorization beyond her longstanding tripartite series title of Fauna, Flora, and Figure. Her paintings convey a profound physicality and texture while also establishing a dynamic range of contrast and color. With formal training in figurative realism, she perceives nature's underlying patterns in wonderfully surprising ways. She often works from accumulated memories and incorporates earlier plein-air experiments.
Fauna Flora Figure 214, mixed media on linen, 54 x 54 inches
"Each endeavor is a free-flowing exploration where the abstract touches the familiar. Something definite is created, but its mystery is still intact. In the beginning, each painting is abstract in all aspects. It’s throughout the paint application that figuration appears and disappears. Periodically, I’ll define an organic shape, pushing it forward to a place of familiarity. One viewer may see plant-like forms, animals, figures or landscape, but others only textured abstract shapes and patterns bathed in lush earth tones." - Shar Coulson
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Nighthawk, metamorphic stone, 51 x 24 x 12 inches
Will Robinson | Movement & Gesture
July 7 - 23, 2022
Seasoned stone sculptor Will Robinson’s nuanced sensibilities with his material have become highly instinctual throughout the three decades his career has spanned. Achieving warmth and softness with unforgiving stone, Robinson breathes life into each piece, revealing the innate qualities of the natural medium he works with. His sculptures are as much about discovery as they are reflections of the artist’s intuition.
Finding boulders and slabs across the Pacific Northwest is the beginning of his artistic process. From the exterior it is often impossible to determine the characteristics and mineral properties within each stone. It is only after he has begun to carve through each piece that he discovers what might be interesting attributes to highlight through sculptural form. Utilizing a wide range of tools, Robinson achieves finished works that not only celebrate the natural elements from which they are hewn, but composes fluidly balanced pieces. Within his newest body of work, Robinson weaves a diverse array of sculptures together through the common thread of his pursuit of beauty.
Fight or Flight, basalt and granite, 87 x 30 x 24 inches
Says Robinson, “my work stems from a free-flowing concept rather than being grounded in any sort of intended meaning.” Will Robinson was born in Bremerton, Washington and studied History at the University of Washington. Robinson's desire to create art began at an early age, growing up in a home filled with art, antiques and bonsai. He chooses to work primarily with stone because of its solidity and ability to withstand the elements and time.
June 2 - 25, 2022
Opening First Thursday June 2, 2022 | 6 - 8 pm
Artist in Attendance
Convergent Paths is Mason's second body of work created during the pandemic; she continues to find refuge in her home and neighborhood, deepening her exploration of the convergence of natural and man-made. Not shying away from the domestic, Mason embraces it. Her work is inspired by her home environs, including plants found close at hand, and her daily view of the Puget Sound. While her suburban setting can be one that insulates from the harsher realities of climate change, Mason challenges us to look beyond our immediate neighborhoods. Only by thinking globally will we truly impact the safety of our own backyards.
Cameron Anne Mason holds a degree in Visual Communication from the Art Institute of Seattle, and studied Liberal Arts at the University of Washington. Her work has been shown across the country and at galleries around the Northwest, as well as Whatcom Museum, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and Bellevue Art Museum. Her work was also included in a group exhibition at Miniartextile in Como Italy, and the Rio Patchwork Design Show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.