Grant Foster

Grant Foster’s rich, thickly painted canvases depicting phantasmagoric children reference the tropes of Romantic painting, particularly William Blake’s engravings and illustrated manuscripts. With the child installed as a central motif, his characters resume a weary role as emblems of morality. In the contemporary context, they suggest hysteria, mania and a fear of the outsider. Grant allegorizes his portraits, simultaneously sublime and macabre, sincere, and sardonic.

He has had solo exhibitions in London at Chandelier Projects, Chinashop, and Post Box Gallery and in New York at Ana Cristea Gallery. He has participated in group exhibitions at institutions such as Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Torrance Art Museum, and Royal College of Art in London. In 2013 his work was part of Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA in London and at Spike Island in Bristol.

Courtesy of Ana Cristea Gallery