In a grand effort to celebrate wild places around the world, British artist Tony Foster adventures into extreme locations, often hiking great distances and camping out to capture, in watercolor, extraordinary landscape scenes. His most recent adventure exploring the Green River of Wyoming, commonly referred to as the headwaters for the Colorado River, has culminated into a profoundly beautiful exhibition of 16 paintings to be hosted at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
Tony Foster on the trail in the Wind River Mountains with Squaretop in the background, September 2022. Photograph courtesy of Karen McWhorter.
“There’s a lot to celebrate about the river and we’re excited to honor a waterway source here in Wyoming and one that has so much importance to the West,” says Karen McWhorter, Collier-Read Director of Curatorial, Education and Museum Services at the center. “The criticality of water is a topic that unites those that make their homes here and those who are invested in the passion and place of the West. Through this project, we are honored to highlight another facet of what makes Wyoming unique.”
Among his many artistic adventures, Foster shares that he’s completed quite a few river journeys, and over the course of many years, the artist traversed and captured the scenery of the Green River in five separate trips. “The nice thing about these ‘river journeys,’ is there’s a narrative thread,” says the artist. “It’s landscapes, water and stories tied together by that thread. You can think of it as a metaphor for life; starting as a trickling stream and then a rushing torrent that then dies out in the sea.”
Tony Foster’s chosen site for his painting of Squaretop (From Lower Green River Lake Looking South South East). Photograph courtesy of Karen McWhorter.
Foster captures the many components of the river’s trajectory and completes paintings fully in the field, never relying on photographs or any additional references. “I’m prepared to sit in uncomfortable places for quite a long time to get the results I want,” he says. “You can always tell, maybe subconsciously, the difference between something painted from a photo versus done on the spot. When people come into an exhibition of my work they seem to take a breath of fresh air, as if they have encountered that fresh air.” This unique process is also completed with the use of a very simple set of tools, perfect for the weary traveler with only so much weight to bear. “I learned early on, if you’re going to go into the backcountry, you have to carry a lot of stuff,” Foster says. “If I had to carry oil paints, that would add an extra 20 pounds to my pack…Painting in watercolor, I carry a paint box smaller than a pack of cigarettes, a folding drawing board, my brushes and an aluminum tube to hold my watercolor paper.”
Wild Mountain Mile 229.25 Looking Upriver, 2019, watercolor and graphite on paper, with fossilized fish and map, 22½ x 22” framed. Collection of The Foster Museum.
Another important feature to Foster’s adventure series’ is his inclusion of souvenirs, maps and some text detailing the artist’s experiences. “Because my work isn’t simply what the landscape looks like, it also contains a diary element. I write in my diary every night in my tent,” the artist shares. “I also collect other bits and pieces that I find along the way that fascinate me and apply them to the painting. [In doing this], people get drawn into the work and find out what it’s like to live in it a bit; these places that most don’t encounter. It’s a holistic approach to landscape painting…Tying memory to a certain place.”
In From Lower Green River Lake Looking South South East, Foster included a necklace made by Shoshone artist Chastity Teton. “While painting the piece, I was thinking about this exquisite sight on the lake,” says Foster. “The water is deep and clear with lots of fish, the landscape very hospitable. I thought how the Shoshone must have loved spending their summers there…Besides the colors of the necklace matching the colors of the painting precisely, adding the Shoshone necklace points out that this land didn’t always belong to the government.”
From Lower Green River Lake Looking South South East, 2022, watercolor and graphite on paper, with glass bead necklace by Chastity Teton, map, 45½ x 58½.” Collection of The Foster Museum.
While on his Green River rafting trip, one of the first journeys in the series, Foster completed four paintings, all including an actual fossilized fish from the region. This can be seen in paintings like Wild Mountain Mile 229.25 Looking Upriver, also illustrating the vast and rich ecological history of the river and Wyoming as a whole.
During his experience creating Wild Mountain, there can be found one of the most significant mementos of Foster’s collection—the message to “slow down and contemplate the work and think about the extraordinary beauty and variety of our planet, and how it’s all linked together,” the artist says. “If my work can convey any of that sense of ‘slow down’ rather than rushing past, that would be nice.”
Gates of Lodore Looking Downriver Mile 242.5, 2019, watercolor and graphite on paper, with fossilized fish and map, 22½ x 22” framed. Collection of The Foster Museum.
One morning, while continuing his painting of Wild Mountain, looking through the canyon walls and the bend in the river, Foster saw a water vole pop up. “I’ve learned that if I sit absolutely still and get on with my work, in the end, the animals take no notice of you,” he says. “You see much more sitting around than chasing things.”
Steamboat Rock, A Bend in the River, 2018, watercolor and graphite on paper, with fossilized fish and map, 22½ x 22.” Collection of The Foster Museum.
In combination with the exhibition Tony Foster: Watercolour Diaries from the Green River, on view from May 20 through October 22, there is an extensive exhibition catalog and a short film by director David Schendel that showcases a collage of Foster’s Green River experience. The exhibition will be on view in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Anne and Charles Duncan Special Exhibitions Gallery. —
Tony Foster: Watercolour Diaries from the Green River
May 20-October 22, 2023
Buffalo Bill Center of the West, 720 Sheridan Avenue, Cody, WY 82414
(307) 587-4771
www.centerofthewest.org
Powered by Froala Editor
