World-traveling artist discusses his many journeys in Cody

Posted 7/9/19

An adventurous artist who captures wilderness landscapes using watercolors will share his work during a Wednesday lecture at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.

Tony Foster’s …

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World-traveling artist discusses his many journeys in Cody

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An adventurous artist who captures wilderness landscapes using watercolors will share his work during a Wednesday lecture at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.

Tony Foster’s lecture, “Exploring Beauty — 35 Years Making Art in Wild Places,” will bring listeners closer to learning about the process of working as an artist, the challenges faced when painting outdoors with minimal supplies and contending with harsh climates and few creature comforts. The talk begins at 5:30 p.m. in the center’s Coe Auditorium.

Foster — a skilled artist from England — has traveled to 15 countries, painting in wild and extreme places in the world.

Foster has completed 16 journeys and is currently working on his 17th. He travels slowly, on foot or by canoe or raft, and carries his painting and camping equipment. Each journey can take up to 10 years to complete.

“He works on his art while he is on these journeys; this is what impresses me the most, he doesn’t take sketches and then work up the sketches into large scale paintings in his studio. He actually works at scale,” said Karen McWhorter, Scarlett Curator of Western American Art at the Center’s Whitney Western Art Museum.

Some of Foster’s journeys include subjects ranging from mountains and canyons, rainforests and deserts, the Arctic and the tropics, to volcanos, coral reefs and iconic places such as the Grand Canyon. He frequently endures extreme weather conditions — including high winds, extreme heat, rain, hail, snow, crumbling slopes, underwater currents and more to reach his remote sites. His most recent journey was the Green River in Utah.

“Tony [Foster] is really working in a contemporary artist explore mode. He literally gets out there into some of the most remote wilderness areas in the U.S. and the world over and brings us depictions of landscapes that are so fragile and beautiful,” McWhorter said.

In addition to the lecture, Foster will explain his approach and process as he works to complete paintings from a Green River journey from 2:30–4 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday at the center. Foster will be set up near the center’s Coffee Bar and Eatery, displaying his watercolors-in-progress as well as a completed, framed painting.

Foster’s paintings and complete journeys have been shown throughout the world including at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut; Royal Watercolor Society, London; Frye Art Museum (Retrospective) in Seattle; the Royal Geographical Society in London; Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.; and the Phoenix Art Museum.

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