Dennis Foster
A Breeze is A Gentle Wind
April 2023

Ampersand is pleased to present A Breeze is A Gentle Wind, an online exhibition of 11 new paintings and an interview with artist Dennis Foster, whose work has previously been featured here at Ampersand in his exhibitions Green Flash Where the Grass Grows Greener in 2020 and Spiritual Good Time in 2021. Foster studied photography at Pacific Northwest College of Arts. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. 

Ampersand: As a viewer, I feel like your new paintings present me with different types of energy. Or maybe it’s more like they elicit varying qualities of energy in different parts of my body, eyes and mind. I know these parts are all connected, but some of your paintings affect my body in a kinetic, visceral way, while others are more cerebral, like my brain is encouraged or invited to make associations based on the information you provide. Is this intentional on your part—as in, are you aware of how your work might affect others? Or is it more a reflection of your own mental state in the making process?

Foster: I tend to approach much of my practice on a visceral level. There's certainly an intentional degree of how I'd like this work to be received, but I'm also not trying to assign many literal definitions. For some of the work, I hope to inject a sense of atmospheric energy. Something very present but also subtle at the same time, maybe like a frequency shifting, or wind. These tend to come from a very meditative or even subconcious frame of mind. Other work I try to keep a bit lighter and less grounded. Something like a bulletin board to arrange and swap ideas with. With these I'm pulling from a pool of visual references with more identifiable elements, inserting cropped "landscapes" into an abstract field. There's definite intention in wanting the viewer to feel a physical movement within the work. 

Ampersand: Do the objects, shapes and forms we sometimes see in your paintings come from anywhere in particular? They feel familiar, yet you somehow manage to imbue them with a sense of mystery. 

Foster: A mix of organic and synthetic entities. A semicircle making its way back into the work often, perhaps referencing the sun or moon, but also suggesting a feeling of being in flux, which somewhat signifies the same thing? I like to think of much of the repeating line work as interpreting a sonic environment and creating a rhythmic space. Geometry seems to fit with the overall visual language I'm presenting in the sense that it offers building blocks for patterns to emerge. It's very rudimentary, but color and movement do a great job with transforming what you ultimately see. 

Ampersand: One could say that you often work in motifs and thereby assume that your sense for the “right” direction in the making process is always in tune. Not that the process is easy, but maybe more like you are always decisive. Is that true or is it more complicated? Where does a painting start?

Foster: I like to keep the work I'm producing concise and relative with subtle nuances along the way. That's not to say there aren't any unexpected moments in the process. There's not a great deal of sketching when starting on new pieces for me, so ultimately I do run into barriers or dilemmas along the way that either need to be worked out or abandoned altogether. Working on paper definitely adds an element of finality that really forces or prepares me to hone in on my end goal. I guess my "sketches" are sometimes the first round of failing to execute an idea and having to regroup. The final draft usually involves extensive mapping as there is quite a bit of design and rhythmic elements that need to stay in tune for them to work. 

Ampersand: What is your relationship with color? In general, I think most people are ambivalent or blind to it, as though colors in the world are exactly as they should be. This might even be true among a lot of artists and designers, like there’s a degree of homogenization in our cultural palette. Or amnesia. But your use of color seems quite intentional, both in what you choose and your textural application.   

Foster: I recently read an interview with Stanley Whitney (Bomb Magazine By David Reed) that really resonated with me. He spoke about spatial awareness with color and it distinguishing between decorative and not decorative. He mentions color being the rhythm and the beat and needing to fill that space accordingly to be successful. It's a seemingly obvious statement but one that is very much easier said than done. I do sometimes look at past work I've made and recognize my missteps taken along the way, which I think further informs my grasp on the importance of right and wrong usages. Color isn't necessarily the subject matter in my work and, while the pieces are time consuming, in essence they are very simple. Color is the key ingredient for them to work and it usually changes several times through the process before things are resolved. "You have to put color in the right space." My previous ‘Fence’ paintings, as a subject, were essentially color studies, and they were really informative for me in learning that one color shouldn't overpower another color within a painting. 

AMPERSAND: The works in your first exhibition here at Ampersand were made during the bleak winter months of early 2020, when you still lived here in Portland. And that was before any of  us knew Covid was about to happen. If I remember correctly, you had recently visited Los Angeles and were thinking of moving back there. Now that you do live there—and I get the impression you are settled in—how would you describe the differences in your personal environment between Portland and LA? Has your approach to making art changed—and, if so, would you say that it’s a circumstance of living in a different place?

FOSTER: My studio is a detached unit from my home where I live with my girlfriend Kara. We're lucky to have a yard space with a few areas to stretch out, so to speak. Kara works as a landscape designer and there's a kind of ever evolving mix of planting (mostly native) around the house. The intentionality surrounding the space is a really good spark to collecting a meditative mindset for my time in the studio. I use the word "collecting"  because there seems to be so many varying factors for entering the right headspace to begin and conceive of a painting for me. The natural evolution of a garden is a nice way to think about my personal work evolving and the incremental changes they go through. Almost a mirror to some extent. In Portland, I had my living space and studio separate, so there was a daily back and forth that became woven into my process. I did love that mental stretch of either walking to or a very short drive to a seperate place of work. That was a much more spontaneous time for my studio practice, though I don't think I was as disciplined. I preferred to work late at night and kept a pretty erratic schedule. In terms of where I'm at now, it's a much more structured and reliable process. I prefer to paint in the morning hours as of the last year or so and it feels more deliberate in general. Exchanging regular sunshine with consistently grey days absolutely ushered in that change for me. 

AMPERSAND: In words, can you provide us a mental image of your studio? Not so much an overview of the entire space, but more the sensory minutia. Like the kind of smells that might pass through an open window. Is it often hot or cold? Sounds—either from the surrounding environment or music. Noises from the neighborhood. Is it messy or organized? 

FOSTER: Outside — There's an orange tree that sits directly in front of my space and is also the primary viewpoint from the window. This time of year the orange blossoms are in full bloom so that scent is overwhelmingly present (in the best way). This attracts bees and hummingbirds, so if I'm not listening to music, I can hear a constant humming, especially in the mornings and evenings. There's the subtle ping from a small, hanging cast iron bell. The dueling ice cream trucks. Occasional Ranchera music coming from a neighboring house.

HELICOPTERS
HELICOPTERS            

The same car alarm that I've theorized is triggered by the same car with loud exhaust that drives past daily. A talking parrot down the street that repeatedly cries, "WA-WAHHHHH." (Have not heard in weeks, potentially since they passed away.)

HELICOPTERS
HELICOPTERS

Inside — Orderly, practical, specific. Joanna Brouk — often. The buzz of the space heater. The humming of the AC unit in the summer months. Sometimes this sets the perfect background drone.

Chuck Johnson — Balsams. McCoy Tyner, John Prine.

My internal dialogue echoing, loudly. 

AMPERSAND: What is a work day like for you in the studio? How long is a making session? Is time in the studio always directed toward a specific goal? 

FOSTER: I'm usually in the best shape if I start my day off immediately in my studio with coffee. If I can find a good rhythm within the first hour or two, I feel comfortable stepping away and returning. I've noticed my most productive times to be from around 6-7AM to 5PM, or somewhere in the early evening. Walking is a big part of my days here, so stepping away as the day is winding down feels in sync with the environment. 

I think it's a matter of bringing that energy and mindset to the surface and getting what you can from it. A lot of times I have no idea of my intention for a day in studio—maybe I clean, reshape my space. If I'm not feeling it, l will sometimes do a quick composition on a smaller scale and try to see it through to unlock any ideas that may be hovering on a subconscious level. I've gotten much better at walking away when hitting a creative wall. It's usually telling of my mental capacity at that current time.

AMPERSAND: Speaking of your neighborhood, the paintings in your last show here, Spiritual Good Time, were sort of evocative of that place during the passing hours of a given day. But that impression was provided more from your own description of the work, rather than specific cues from the paintings themselves. Your titles, on the other hand, were more vague, offering a mental context without forcing a particular interpretation on viewers. For this new exhibition, A Breeze is A Gentle Wind, you’ve decided to forgo titling altogether. Is there something about your work in particular that makes assigning titles difficult? Or maybe even a distraction?  

FOSTER: I'm not working with any particular narratives in mind, especially with this most recent work, so assigning specific titles feels almost forced or not authentic. In the past, when I've been working through a body of work, A loose theme will begin to build in my mind and I would assign A sort of abstract identity to them. I think on some level this is probably the case for all the work I make, but maybe more intentional at times than others. Choosing to forgo titling on these almost implies an unfinished work. They're certainly finished pieces, but I'm imagining some elements from them on a larger scale as fully matured paintings.

AMPERSAND: Your exhibition title, A Breeze is A Gentle Wind, feels like it could describe a mental state. For me, it provides the perfect context for that visceral and/or mental dichotomy I described earlier. It doesn’t have to be either or and it can also be both. A liberating thought. It also reminds of our recent conversation about your travels through the Southwest, the open spaces of Southern California, New Mexico and West Texas, where a faint breeze can feel immense. You strike me as someone one who is always in tune and gathering information, but I wonder if this kind of travel is a type of research or more for mental restoration?

FOSTER: On a basic level, mental restoration. I think this goes back to pulling myself away from the feeling of always needing or wanting to be engaged with making something that we've talked about. Traveling, especially through really undeveloped open spaces, makes the process of mentally projecting myself into view with how I'd like my personal trajectory to look—existing in a more rural setting, at the front of my mind. With the Southwest, there's definitely a feeling of mysticism and the urge to simplify a way of living, to be completely engaged in a practice. I think finding a sense of autonomy in the world is a reason I'm pulled to such areas. There seems to be less implications or frameworks on how someone should be moving through life. The title, A Breeze is A Gentle Wind, certainly speaks to me as a state of mind or descriptor of a way of life, but also a very simple notion of truth.