Grant Foster

Working across painting, sculpture, collage and more recently text, Grant Foster uses irreverence as a tool to readdress the dogmatic traditions of the past and the present infallibility of reason. Foster’s paintings are best understood within the parameters of an historical and political framework; the old collides with the new, the popular skews the classical – “I find history liberating….I’m not necessarily talking about binary information like dates and historical facts, but a sense of who we are, where we’ve come from and what we face – history alerts us to this and it’s often uncompromising.”

Regularly employing a centralised emblematic motif, where a lone figure is engaged in an act of quiet solitude or lurking malevolence, moral ambivalence is a central motivation across Foster’s work. High-keyed colour suggests an acidic immediacy that can be both visceral and humorous, where laughter and pathos are keenly entwined.

Concerned by tabloid culture’s ability to stoke hysteria, Foster employs an almost cartoonish folk-like aesthetic as a way to challenge the ascendency of classical European figuration. Attempting to re-arrange our common assumptions regarding beauty and the grotesque, Foster’s voice is both tender and hysterical, sardonic and earnest, with black humour running throughout.

Education

2010-2012 MA Painting
Royal College of Art

2001-2004 BA Fine Art Painting
University of Brighton

Solo Exhibitions

2022/23
Open to You, Art Lacuna, London
2019
I’m Not Being Funny, Lychee One, London
2018
Grant Foster, Trade Gallery, Nottingham
2017
Ground, Figure, Sky, Tintype, London
2016
Popular Insignia, Galleria Acappella, Naples
2015
Salad Days, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York
2014
Holy Island, Chandelier Projects, London
2013
The Walnut Tree, Chinashop, Oxford
2009
Mute and Impotent Before the Boot, Post Box Gallery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022
I can’t go on, I’ll go on, Safehouse One, London
2021
Scared Back Into Y(our) Body, with Jamie Fitzpatrick, ASC Gallery, London
2021
Your Foot in My Face and other tectonic strategies, Kinsgate Gallery, London
2020
When You Waked Up the Buffalo, Milhai Nicodim, Los Angeles, US
2020
Picture Palace, Transition Gallery, London
2019
Exeter Contemporary Open, Phoenix Gallery, Exeter a showcase of emerging and established contemporary visual artists from across the UK, selected by Sacha Craddock, Mark Titchner and Matt Burrows.
The Book of Dreams, contemporary responses to the work of William Blake, at Chapel on the Green, in Glasbury, Wales
1d for Abroad, Tintype, London
Blemish and Beyond, New Art Projects, London
2018
Frivolous Convulsions, Turf Projects, London
A Stone in the Mountain, w/Georgia Hayes, Transition Gallery, London
2017
You see me like a UFO, Marcelle Joseph Projects, London
2016
Mostra, British School at Rome, Rome
The Classical, Transition Gallery, London
SPORE, Kennington Residency, London
Miami Vice, Transition Gallery, London
2015
Carnival Glass / Block 336 / London
CURE, Transition Gallery, London
The Alembic of Creative Thought, Westminster Waste, London
Figuratively Speaking, Marcelle Joseph Projects, Heike Moras Gallery, London
2014
The Theadneedle Prize, Curated by Sacha Craddock, Mall Galleries, London
East London Painting Prize, Strand House, London
Rx for Viewing (with Jesse Wine), Ana Cristea Gallery, New York
2013
Art Britannia, Miami
Painting Show, Winter Projects, London
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Spike Island, Bristol and ICA, London
Implausible Imposters, Ceri Hand Gallery, London
Creekside open selected by Paul Noble and Ceri Hand
2012
The Harboured Guest, 4 Windmill Street, London
Show RCA, Royal College of Art, London
Backwards Man, CGP London
2011
Memory of a Hope, Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool
The Future Can Wait presents Polemically Small, Torrance Art Museum, CA
Hello Paradise, Kinsgate Gallery, London
2010
Between a Hole and a Home, James Taylor Gallery, London
2009
Kunskog, 500 dollars, London
Royal Academy Summer Show, London
Pretty Deep, The Royal Standard, Liverpool
2008
For My Part, James Taylor Gallery, London
2008-09
John Moores 25, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Awards / Residencies

Randall Chair, Alfred University, NYC, Jan – March 2019
Fellowship of Contemporary Art, British School at Rome, Oct – Dec 2016
Leverhulme Bursary, 2010
John Moores 25 Prizewinner, 2008

Publications

Ground, Figure, Sky. Image and text publication. Edition of 100 available through Tintype Gallery, London, 2017. Designed by Studio Eger
(Difficult) Women, Garageland Magazine, Issue 22, 2018
The Drawer, Issue 10 “Heroes”, 2016
Neru Phuyt, Issue 1, 2014
Holy Island, text written by Lorena Munoz Alonso
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2013
Mute and Impotent Before the Boot, catalogue publication written by Sacha Craddock
John Moores 25, catalogue publication
Celeste Art Prize 2007, catalogue publication