Biography
Born in 1949, in south Florida, Lynn Foskett was educated in the South, Mid-West and Northeast, a including study abroad in Europe. Receiving a strong visual arts background in her early college career, with a focus in fashion illustration she earned her BFA degree in painting from Northern Illinois University. Returning to Florida in 2000, Foskett was active in various local and statewide arts organizations. Her work has been exhibited in both open and juried shows in all-Florida museum, gallery and invitational exhibitions, winning numerous awards.
Foskett has also shown her work in the broader Southeast region, most notably in the juried ArtFields Exhibition and Competition of 2021 and 2022 in South Carolina. She has been the recipient of an Artist-in-Residence grant for the Florida non-profit Pinellas Community Foundation's 50th Anniversary program Act II: Aging in Place and a recipient of the 2019/20 Creative Pinellas Emerging Artist Grant (St. Petersburg, FL).
Recently, Foskett has relocated to the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. She is currently establishing a functioning studio space, creating new work, and engaging with the local art community.
Artist’s Statement: How we perceive our closest relationships has intrigued me for some time. Shaped by physical and emotional experiences, our perception of the people and world around us changes with the passage of time and the filter of memory.
My examination of this awareness opens up opportunities to experiment with different mediums, tools and materials. Beyond traditional approaches, these have included: sewn and stuffed canvas forms; found objects; handmade books; digital drawing; synthetic surfaces such as YUPO; sheet wax; shaped and layered substrates; graphite oil and cold wax medium to name a few.
Expanding my visual vocabulary in this way is central to my practice, as is an ongoing interest in the philosophical underpinnings of the several art movements. Both provide a means to considering the ever changing experience of perception. I often use the chair, either depicted or the object itself, as a metaphor for this exploration – a “conveyance of memory,” if you will.
Picasso is quoted as saying that all “…art is a lie that leads us to the truth.” Ultimately, I consider a piece successful if it evokes the ambiguities explored and a sense of truth about the world within and without.
A Note on the Process: Foskett has used Yupo, a synthetic paper, as her substrate for many years. She also works with oil and cold wax medium CMW (a thick, clear wax that acts as a drying agent when mixed with oils, speeds up the paint drying time, increases the oil’s volume and translucency). Foskett often adds collage and other media, using cradled wood panel and shaped lauan (a thin, veneered plywood) or gatorboard as supports. While more complicated pieces require greater planning, generally only one or two preliminary sketches are made as Foskett enjoys working with the surprises that occur within a work in progress. Each element informs the next step taken, the original concept at times evolving into something unexpected, creating a dialogue between the artist and her muse.