John Foster

I am a painter of lost worlds. Frequently I do photorealistic acrylic paintings of subjects that are impossible or at least would be very difficult to photograph. At a very young age I came to the realization that my mind could go virtually anywhere in space or time unscathed while my physical body was extremely limited and fragile by comparison. Through researching my subject, developing the requisite techniques for it, and making logical extrapolations, I can explore a plethora of wonders both natural and manmade. If all limits of space and time were suddenly removed and you could not just survive any environment but thrive in them, what would you do? Would you be content to just stay in your familiar neighborhood or explore with reckless abandon? I tend to do the latter.
This tendency toward exploration often clashes with the art establishment in which an artist is expected to develop a mature style and stick stringently to one narrow genre’. This is like painting one’s self into a corner and staying there till decomposition sets in. Variety is the spice of life even in art. To balance my adventurous approach with the art establishment norms I often tend to work in series.
Here is a scaled down and hopefully not too bor...