Artist Statement
Jim Foos

What do you get when you cross attention deficit disorder with an art teaching career? A relentless ongoing experimentation with different materials, exciting new technologies, and a multitude of radical approaches. The idea for a retrospective-esc “group” show arose when having a conversation with a local gallery owner. I joked about the fact that if I had a solo art show it would look like a group show. Having different artistic personalities has affected my approach for gallery representation as they tend to prefer consistent style of artwork.

The different bodies of work represent time periods and approaches to art created within context that are connected, like facets, of an overarching artistic pursuit. The sumi ink pieces were created to form a better understanding of the medium and as examples for teaching that unit. The landscape paintings are for the most part plein air done as a leisure activity, for competitions, and continuation from one of my favorite painting classes from college.

Portrait art has always been one of my main fortes since high school. It’s the main source of commission work I have received. Digital art creation has been my most recent endeavor also motivated by my teaching career. I teach digital photography and graphic art. The remaining work included in the show are academic studies and still life set ups for teaching purposes as well. My hope is that as these works hang together the tie that binds these works will be seen.