Barbara Foster

Over the past fifteen years my work has addressed the fragility of the landscape, whether it is the Nevada proving grounds, deep-sea terrain, corporate agriculture, Taiwan urban gardens, or the planting and harvesting of trees as a way of looking at the resurrection of the previously blighted or the implications of the unpredictable.

The projects are directly related to the history, environment, and event at specific sites by linking process and content in black and white relief prints, hybrid digital/relief prints, and carbon prints on Taiwanese and Japanese papers. Ink, paper, and photography, along with specific wood and active physical image development combine to elicit a response that is not immediately obvious, finding kinship among materials and subject.

In addition, the development of “shoes” and “pulls” has created a means by which to capture the impressions, development or history of an environment directly onto the face of the wood. The resulting images mark the former existence, passage, influence or action, of some agent, event, or moment. The projects intend to reshape the visual dialogue on these topics by moving the conversation and practice to reflect the landscapes that have claimed new identities through process yet are still imbued with the patina of history and event.