For those considering an artistic expedition with British painter Tony Foster, the adventure begins with a stark warning. Prospective travel companions must sign a contract acknowledging the very real dangers, including a clause requiring sufficient personal insurance for your body to be flown home in case of fatality.
A Life on the Edge for Art
This is the uncompromising world of Tony Foster, a 79-year-old artist who continues to seek out the planet's most remote and unspoiled landscapes. His mission: to find the perfect vantage point for his breathtaking watercolour panoramas. The new documentary, Tony Foster: Painting at the Edge, directed by David Schendel, follows the artist on one such journey along the Green River in Wyoming and Utah.
Foster, described by a longtime acquaintance as looking like two toothpicks in a potato, possesses an improbable hardiness. This is forged from over three decades of trekking through extreme environments, from the Bolivian wilds to the foothills of Mount Everest. The search for the right spot is a dedicated process; on one occasion, it took him a staggering 16 days to find the exact location he needed.
More Than Just a Landscape
Once his easel is set up, the self-taught artist creates luminous, airy panoramas noted for their jewel-like clarity. His process, however, is not simply about imposing his personal feelings onto a scene. The work is deeply meditative, focusing on what the landscape puts into him. He describes himself as a political artist, driven to capture wilderness areas that are rapidly disappearing from our world.
The film explores the roots of this relentless drive. Growing up in rural Lincolnshire, Foster bridled against traditional schooling and even experienced homelessness on the streets of London during the Swinging Sixties. This forged a streak of self-sufficiency that clearly fuels his artistic expeditions. He speaks of feeling like a molecule on a gnat's eyelash when confronted with nature's monumentality, though the documentary leaves it ambiguous whether this feeling is a source of comfort or a force to be defied.
The film's energy dissipates slightly when Foster returns to his studio in Cornwall to put the finishing touches on his paintings. He is visibly crestfallen when his hard-won works from the Green River are shipped off to the gallery. While Schendel's own footage from the trail is often as splendid as Foster's creations, the director didn't have to endure the same physical toll.
Tony Foster: Painting at the Edge arrives in UK cinemas on 14 November, offering a compelling portrait of an artist still risking it all for his craft in his eighth decade.
