The Rhythm of Life
Essay by M. Stephen Doherty

It's rare to see a collection of a contemporary artist's work that spans twenty-five years. Most exhibitions only highlight a person's recent efforts or some limited aspect of their oeuvre. So this retrospective display of paintings, books, and constructions by Robert James Foose provides a singular opportunity to contrast and compare his creative efforts and thereby learn something about the man, his perceptions, and his ideas. For the first time, we can search for a pattern, some continuity, or a persistent vision--a rhythm to his life's works.

Like many artists, in the visual, literary, and performing arts, Foose proudly acknowledges the influence of his early experiences in Eastern Pennsylvania and of his family's travels throughout the United States. In particular, the pastoral landscape of his hometown of York, Pennsylvania, is imprinted in his memory and continues to shape his view of the world. Andrew Wyeth celebrated that region in drawings and paintings, and even though Foose grew up without any awareness of Wyeth, his perceptions were shaped by the same austere architectural forms, open farmlands, and unflinching light. He brought that vision of rural life to Kentucky as a college student and maintained his interest through the years of exploring the Bluegrass countryside.

Although Foose staunchly resisted the efforts of college professors to make him an Abstract Expressionist painter, he nevertheless came under the influence of those teachers. In particular, he gained an appreciation for strong, economical design and learned to effectively manipulate typography, layouts, and illustrations. He realized the beauty of simple shapes, the richness of a limited palette, and the power of a well-composed arrangement. That realization carried over into his paintings.

"I feel I owe much to other artists," Foose says. "I related to Andrew Wyeth as soon as I became aware of his work while in college. For a while I imitated him. But I was equally aware of those artists so prevalent in those early days, artists like de Kooning and Motherwell who were equally part of my training: de Kooning for the sheer handling of paint itself and Motherwell for the formal elements of composition and reduction."

The rhythm of Foose's life was established by these early experiences in a familiar landscape, a nurturing family, and a challenging education. It was further enhanced by his work as an art director for the University Press of Kentucky, senior graphic artist for the University of Kentucky, and publisher of Buttonwood Press. Those jobs gave him an opportunity to explore the abstract relationship of words, pictures, and textural materials.

While designing scholarly publications, Foose conveyed concrete information in books that had a physical presence independent of that information. It was inevitable that Foose would create books in which the pictures, paper, and binding became just as important as the message contained in the words. And the logical conclusion of his exploration was a book that didn't have words at all.

The realization that objects take on greater meaning when isolated and presented in a new context helped to connect the seemingly disparate parts of Foose's artistic life. Using watercolors to paint trees, houses, barns, streams, and clouds became a process of abstracting natural forms. "As Cezanne said, 'My paintings always have their origin in reality. I stir the source around in every direction, but I always need contact with the earth.'"

When moving from watercolor to oil and then to printmaking, the process was no different than painting another group of natural forms in oil paint or carving them out of a block of wood and printing them on sheets of paper. It was all a matter of appreciating the physicality of things that represented thoughts, expressions, and images.

Once established, this rhythm began to repeat itself in watercolors, oil/alkyd paintings, illustrated books, and constructions. And it was so constant and pervasive that Foose could move from one form of expression to another without missing a beat. At first, color was subservient to the design of Foose's paintings. Using dark hues made from combinations of pigments, he would mark the shadows cast by branches, pillars, clouds, rocks, and fences. Limited amounts of water or alkyd medium were added to suggest middle range values. Years later, a wider array of strong colors was added in succinct patches and then in flat patterns that defined a stage-like arrangement of shallow forms.

Surprisingly, Foose says that color is what first attracts his attention to a subject--not light or texture or shape. "All those visual elements influence me," he says, "but it is color that catches my eye and stays in my memory." When he paints those elements in either watercolor or oil, he selects from a palette of many pigments. "I currently work with about 120 to 130 colors," he reveals. "I built a rolling taboret with a glass top so I could arrange the Oil colors in the same progression every time I work. That way I always know what I'm loading on my brush.

"I admit to being a kid about buying new colors that become available," he continues. "Once I find an interesting new pigment I work it into a whole series of paintings. Sometimes I go in search of natural objects that can be painted with exciting new colors I discover."

Foose observes that in recent years he has been working with a range of brighter pigments. "Other artists have talked about the fact that as they get older they push colors to be brighter than they appear in nature," he says. "That's because one of the principal joys of painting is seeing color in nature, taking it into the studio, and pushing it to the edge. That process is exciting and it keeps the painter alive."

Memory is another important part of the rhythm that pervades Foose's creative process. Almost all of his paintings are done in the studio months or years after the subject matter has entered his consciousness. He may sketch or photograph a landscape or building, but the final image has more to do with his recollections.

It's worth noting the kinds of pictorial elements that seldom appear in Foose's paintings. For one, there are few living creatures in the landscapes or interiors of his pictures. In fact, there is seldom evidence that human beings or animals have ever occupied those spaces. No footprints, burning fires, tire tracks, family pets, incandescent lights, or romping deer disturb the peace. And even when Foose paints a manmade structure or a still life of used items, there is no attempt to personalize or sentimentalize those forms. The landscape is not a backdrop and the plant is not a memento. They are opportunities to arrange shapes and colors.

One of the services that artists perform is bringing our attention to things we would otherwise have overlooked. Over the past twenty-five years, Robert James Foose has shown us a range of shapes and patterns in nature that were hidden in the trees, bushes, streams, houses, and plants. He opens our eyes to the elegant forms in nature and opens our minds to the abstract relationships between those forms. We now see and understand the rhythms of his life and ours.