Colour Soul - 2016

I have spent the past year working on an extensive research project inspired by my conscious and subconscious, objective and subjective responses to colour.

For this series, which commenced in the Autumn of 2015, I started in the spirit of scientific exploration and experiment. Using my prior in-depth knowledge and practical experience of historical painting techniques and materials, I created, over the course of the year, several large pieces made up of a series of small works. Each piece followed a rigorous experimental plan: Aim, Experiment, Conclusion, and was created to look at how contemporary artists’ pigments, many taken from the petrochemical industries, responded to the nuanced and layered techniques of traditional oil painting methods. Experimental tools to explore the expressive power and potential of layered colour.

Life circumstances and emotional state have a necessary and important effect on the life and works of any artist. The two are intimately entwined. In balancing my life as a mother, artist, worker and single parent, my work reflects this complexity of roles and relationships, freedoms and constraints. The current works have largely been created on countless small panels, prepared over many months. Easily stored and transported, they can be manipulated and reordered to suit their environment, whether it be a kitchen table, my current studio (large shed) or an exhibition space.

Similarly, colour, for me, is fundamental to emotional expression. Colour had leached from my life as a result of stress and trauma.; suddenly it returned in an explosion of light, flickering and vibrating in sun-drenched hues. I used these powerful glazing and layering techniques, avoiding flat or opaque colours and combined them with the complexities of contemporary commercial paint and colour technology to create ever-stronger depths and resonances. And then, like a fine wine, they needed to be contemplated, savoured and developed over time.

These works do not photograph well, the observable colour range being beyond that which can be effectively printed or reproduced on a computer screen. Such reproductions are unable to capture the luminosity of the materials and the changes observed in response to movements of light and shadow. The minute alterations in thickness of paint-layer as a result of the canvas weave, creates a multitude of vibrating ‘pixels’ of saturation. In this way, although the works appear at first simple, it is with close and prolonged observation that their true power is revealed.

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Rachel Foister studied the techniques, materials and methods of the early Renaissance at the Atelier Neo Medici in SW France before returning to the UK to complete an MFA.

In this project, she has moved yet further from her training in realism and super-realism – moving beyond the confines of photography and readdressing the profound differences between this medium and pure painting.

Her work has been shown in both France and the UK and is in private collections in the UK, France and Bermuda.