Ryan Foster (b. 1984) is an American oil painter based in Birmingham, AL. He received an MFA from The University of South Florida in 2011. Working with themes like impermanence, beauty, brokenness, humor and the divine, he is interested in utilizing representational rendering to establish an open ended arena that allows for as many conceptual avenues to stay open as possible. To that end he begins with a single line, like a child does when first learning to draw, to separate the earth from the sky. This dividing line acts as a starting point for each work.
Creating a horizon line also generates two separate paintings. The earth remains the earth, while the “sky” turns into an other-worldly arena or alternate dimension where a variety of ideas and genres are explored. In this manner, the paintings seek to be open-ended enough to absorb almost any subject matter. Like a strange Instagram feed, the open expanse of the “sky” is treated as a different realm as it endeavors to incorporate anything.
Abstraction, portraiture, still life, and landscape genres can be found to coexist within a single canvas. Often the genres bleed together becoming a landscape-portrait, or a still-life-abstract. The blending of genres reflects our information age where ideas and cultures collide. Similar to quickly scrolling through media, there is an embrace of excessive stimuli as categories and subject matter clash. Ideas can be explored spontaneously. Broke down abstracts, athletic failure/glory, patterns, textiles, and disassembled illuminated manuscripts are cobbled together and executed in a detailed manner.
As attention spans shrink, indecision is allowed. Concepts are developed and abandoned quickly. If a painting fails, that failed space is renovated with new ideas painted directly upon the old creating a dense layering of impermanence and change. Sometimes years pass before this “renovation” takes place. Vines, ivy, posters, and abstract stripes are painted over the original “unsuccessful” image. The Japanese art of Kintsugi, in which the broken is mended with precious materials in such a way that it becomes more valuable than it was previously, is relevant.
This process of working is a love of the visual world where what we can see acts as a vessel for the truly important things that we cannot.