Orme Lewis Gallery
June 13 – September 20, 2009
For more than twenty years, English artist Tony Foster has been visiting and painting in the world’s most contrasting and emotionally powerful environments – the depths of the Grand Canyon and the heights of Mount Everest. His travels have taken him to remote locations to paint on both the North and South Rims of the Canyon, and he is believed to be the only artist to ever create paintings of Everest from both the Nepal and Tibet sides of the mountain, which includes the North Face where hikers generally approach and the even more remote East Face. This exhibition is the culmination of these travels, bringing together approximately 25 recent studies and monumental watercolor paintings created at these breathtaking sites.
Working in the delicate and unforgiving medium of watercolor, Foster blends the 19th century traditions of the British explorer/artists who made detailed notebook sketches of their travels with a contemporary artist’s interest in working in a large-scale format, with his largest watercolor paintings measuring six-feet wide. Appreciation for the difficulty of working on such scale, however, comes second to the beauty of the paintings themselves.
Foster states, “My thesis is that despite a world overloaded with imagery, certain places still retain the power to inspire awe and wonder.”
Including with each work are tokens or “souvenirs” from the region presented, plus a small geographical map locating the exact point of execution.
Foster writes, “All of my work is based on the philosophy that our planet is a gloriously beautiful but fragile place, and that as an artist it is my role to deliver a testament to the fact that wild and pristine places still exist.”
Born in Lincolnshire, England in 1946, Foster is a Fellow of London’s Royal Geographical Society, where he has been the recipient of the Cherry Kearton Memorial Medal “for his artistic portrayal of the world’s wilderness,” and the subject of the documentary “The Man Who Painted Everest” (2006).
Left: Filming "The Man Who Painted Everest" at 13,400 feet (4084 M). Photograph © Kurt Ohms 2006. Right: Tony at work above Gokyo (17,500'), Photograph copyright © 2005 Mike Nathan.