All Posts By

frederickafoster

Dec 16 2018
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Artists Statement

By | About the Artwork | No Comments

Our bodies are mostly water, and we are an intimate part of the hydrological cycle. Think about this when you first awaken – we are all water filters. We intrinsically know this, and that all life depends on water. Looking at water, or a painting of water, resonates emotionally in our bodies and minds.

I am primarily a perceptual oil painter, using imagination to explore the rhythms and forms that appear on the canvas. The colors I choose are arbitrary, and paint is layered until I see movement and life. The interaction of water and light is what interests me, and by painting water without a horizon, I am able to capture its abstract nature.

Many artists have been called by water, and we have been testing the hypothesis that art can lead to positive action to help heal our world. We have considerable evidence that it does.

In the summer of 2018, I designed a class at the Seattle Artist League: Art, Activism and the Salish Sea. I collaborated with the students to do a book, “Artists Celebrate the Salish Sea”, which is available on Amazon.

All profits go to the Salish Sea Project, a film alerting us to what is happening in the sea, particularly with the Orcas and their prey, the Chinook Salmon.   SAL hosted an fund-raising exhibition of 25 artists who also helped to support this project. Both the book and the film offer specific ideas on how each of us can make a difference in supporting clean water, wherever we may live.

This April, Giana Pilar Gonzales and I will do a workshop at the Foundations of Art and Education Conference in Columbus, Ohio.   In “Water Journeys”, we will all work with images to explore our individual relationships with water, and how this relates to identity, value, ethics and our future actions.

Dec 16 2018
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Salish Sea Exhibition at the Seattle Artist League

By | Past Exhibitions | No Comments

24 artists participated in Salish Sea Exhibition at the Seattle Artist League, September 15, 2018.

Laurie Anderson, Sarah Bangs, Toni Bennett, Mimi Boothby, Julie Devine, Lauren Fattal, Bretton Findlay, Lisa Foster, Fredericka Foster, Bolinas Frank, Dylan Frazier, Erin Goodwin-Guerrero, Charlotte Hansen, Chris Harvey, Alan Honick, Victoria Jendretzke, Nicole Keenan, Cindy Larison, Brittany Lee, Marcus Lelle, Esther Loopstra, Sharon Mason, Peg McNair, Lyra McNaul, Zachary McNaul, Mahala Mrozek, Dixie Peaslee, Connie Pierson, Eileen Sliwinski, Joan Stuart Ross, Cynthia Tamayao, Diana Tan, Ruthie V, Marina Vogman, Jodi Wade, Siobhan Wilder.

View the Artists Celebrate the Salish Sea Book.

Nov 30 2018
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The Smaller the Theater, the Faster the Music

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Jacobs_BR-Glass-Foster

Philip Glass and Fredericka Foster

Composer Philip Glass talks time with painter Fredericka Foster.

By Philip Glass & Fredericka Foster
Introduction by Beth Jacobs

How is composing music of a given meter similar to painting flowing water? In this conversation between the composer and musician Philip Glass and the painter Fredericka Foster, two artists set out to tackle this question, before flowing into questions of memory, physics, and death.

Glass and Foster met in the late 1990s through their mutual interest in Buddhism. They shared a teacher, Gelek Rimpoche, and attended yearly meditation retreats together in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When I invited them to have a conversation about time, they both responded with great interest and curiosity. How better to reflect, they said, on a decades-long relationship that had been sparked by Buddhist teachings and strengthened by a mutual artistic admiration?

Getting them together was less easy. Glass was traveling in Europe, while Foster was in Seattle. So we recorded a telephone conversation, transcribed it, then recorded a second conversation to fill in the gaps. In a way, the resulting dialogue between the two artists—their first formal collaboration—is informed by its own distortions of time and space.

After Glass returned to New York, I got a chance to see him perform a piece at Carnegie Hall that was introduced more than 30 years ago. It was recognizable as a Glass signature, but at the same time it was something different, even better than the original. As I was listening to the piece, I was reminded of what my collaborator, Lee Smolin, wrote in his introduction to our project on time:

“In the new view of time, time is essential, and irreversible because it generates genuine novelty.”

Time had given a genuine novelty to Glass’ performance of an old piece. I expect it will do the same years from now, when two old friends reread their conversation on an ageless topic.

Read More

Nov 30 2018
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Water Journeys Workshop Conference – April 2019

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Fredericka Foster & Giana González, Independent Artists

Water is both a global and personal issue, since every living thing depends upon water.  We may misperceive water as a subject of importance primarily to organizations focused upon the issue, but since all living beings are made mostly of water, and what we eat and drink affects this key substance, how we treat water determines our lives. Art offers a method to emphasize human agency for clarifying our relationship with water, making us aware of its part in our personal story and identity, and helping us shape and guide our intentions and relationship with it.

We will facilitate this process with a series of questions.   We will share basic design principles. We will provide materials for collage, using sample images from Fredericka’s and Giana’s artwork and sourced images from the internet and magazines.  Participants will craft and illustrate their own water journeys with words and images, learning how an artistic practice aids self-reflection and communication. They will share their personal journey with water, how it relates to their identity, value, ethics and future actions. They will develop an experimental framework using creativity and art to express values, educate on a specific issue, and ignite action.

Learn More about the FATE Conference Workshops

Nov 30 2018
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Artists Celebrate the Salish Sea: A Collaboration

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by Fredericka Foster, Alan Honick, Deborah Baker, Erin Goodwin-Guerrero, Sara Karl, Marcus Patrick Lelle, Becky MacPherson, Sharon Mason, Mahala Mrozek

Drawings, paintings and prints by several artists help share our sense of intimacy with the Salish Sea and all its inhabitants. We explore the dynamics that embody our intense sense of place. From body painting with crab molt to a painting of J-35 pushing her dead calf, to abstracted prints of water, this book gives one a sense of what it means to be a Pacific Northwesterner. Also included are actions you can take to make a difference, either in your home or yard, or as a citizen and political being, regardless of political party. This book is dedicated to J-35, a Southern Resident Killer Whale also known as Tahlequah, and to all who strive to conserve our beautiful world for future generations.

View the Artists Celebrate the Salish Sea Book.

Feb 18 2018
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Interview for Praxis Interview Magazine on WYBCX Yale University Radio, with Brainard Carey

By | Exhibitions | No Comments

Fredericka Foster works in oil painting and photography. She was born in Seattle and has spent most of her life on, or near, water. This proximity gave rise to a deep, personal connection with water, amplified by her Buddhist studies and practice. This lifelong connection to water has deeply informed her paintings.

After receiving her B.A. in Art at the University of Washington, she studied and taught at The Factory of Visual Arts in Seattle, and eventually moved to New York. She currently lives in New York City and Seattle.

Read the full interview at http://museumofnonvisibleart.com

Jan 30 2018
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Exploring Catastrophe to Water through Science and Art

By | Exhibitions, Uncategorized | No Comments

After giving a rapid fire participant talk about the water paintings I make, a group of scientists joined me at Discovery Park near the West Point Treatment plant. The treatment plant had been gushing raw sewage after a catastrophic flood brought it to a halt 2 months before.  Several of us wore white lab coats and rubber gloves as we used water collected near the plant to assist the group in making drawings which would be used in the Climate March for Science the next day.

View the Exploring Catastrophe Page

Jul 17 2017
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April 18 – August 18, 2017 – Fischbach Gallery

By | Past Exhibitions | No Comments

The Fischbach Gallery is pleased to present 18 an online summer group exhibition featuring works by Leigh Behnke, Helen Berggruen, Joe Brainard, Alice Dalton Brown, Barbara Dixon Drewa, Fredericka Foster, Michiyo Fukushima, Jeff Gola, Nancy Hagin, Glen Hansen, Candace Jans, John Laub, Brad Marshall, Denise Mickilowski, Emma Tapley, Alexandra Tyng, Jeffrey Vaughn, and James Winn from 18 April through 18 August 2017.

Fredericka Foster Bay Sunset Revisited 2015 oil on linen, 30 x 48″

Feb 06 2017
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March 2-5, 2017 – THE CLIO ART FAIR

By | Past Exhibitions | No Comments

508 West 26th Street New York, NY 10011

Red River 18 x 40” oil on canvas


THE CLIO ART FAIR

CLIO ART FAIR is a curated fair created with the idea of discovering independent artists and showcasing the careers and achievements of already affirmed creative minds.

By specifically targeting artists without any exclusive NYC gallery representation, CLIO ART FAIR focuses attention on the kinds of contemporary art and interventions that are being created by independent artists the world over.

508 West 26th Street New York, NY 10011