Exploring Time - Tony Foster's watercolour landscapes at the RWS Gallery

There’s an amazing exhibition of very impressive watercolour paintings by Tony Foster at the RWS Gallery in Whitcomb Street. 

It's quite unlike anything else I've ever seen before in an art gallery.

For more than 45 years now English artist Tony Foster has worked in the World’s wildernesses - mountains and canyons, rainforests and deserts, the Arctic and the Tropics. Travelling slowly - on foot or by canoe or raft, and carrying his painting and camping equipment he makes his paintings in response to what he finds on his journeys.

“Exploring Time” in plein air painting treks through geological and biological time across various wilderness locations on different continents. 

This new exhibition presents over fifty watercolours painted en plein air over seventeen years, sharing the artist's reflections on the complexity of time and its impact upon the planet. Each includes notes from the artist’s experiences as well as maps and objects relevant to its location.

Divided into Geological Time, Biological Time, Human Time and Fleeting Moments, the paintings explore how time has sculpted and affected our planet. From Colorado to Tibet, the Galapagos and Cornwall, the works celebrate the wonder of nature, highlighting the importance of leaving areas of the world undisturbed.

A view of one of the basement galleries

His watercolour paintings painted plein air over 17 years are phenomenal. 

Some are of some absolutely amazing vistas in wilderness country. Some are of things he finds and records en route when trekking - which also record the small things in places in a unique way.

• You can see some of my photos of this paintings in my Facebook Post
• You can see a record of his exhibitions over the years on his website

The resulting paintings are a visual record of what he encounters on his journey: not just the landscape, but flora and fauna, notes, souvenirs and anecdotes.

A record of small objects - leaves, fruits, birds, eggs, feathers, twigs etc
found in a specific place on is travels

He also has an extraordinarily impressive CV of exhibitions across the USA and UK and coverage in articles by very many different publications. 

This exhibition will be embarking on a tour of the US from 2026 to 2028.

Approach to Drawing and Painting + Equipment

His approach to recording by drawing and painting what he sees is quite unlike virtually all landscape artists. This is his plein air method

He does not use photography or sketches but makes his paintings on site, often in the most difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. Sometimes a large-scale work (up to 8ft x 4 ft / 244 cms x 122 cms!) will take more than three weeks on site before it is sufficiently resolved to roll into its aluminium tube to be completed in his studio in Cornwall. 

Check out his painting equipment he takes with him 

Tony Foster's very lightweight painting equipment for very large paintings

Once he has found his painting site, he erects a makeshift board as an easel. When working in freezing conditions, he adds gin to his painting water to stop it icing-up. 

Events Programme

Review: British Plein Air Painters 2023 Exhibition

"A Plein Air Vision", the third exhibition by the British Plein Air Painters (BPAP) Group opened today at the RWS Gallery at 3 Whitcomb Street (next to the National Gallery). 

I went to the Private View last night which was a very convivial happy affair with many people and rather a lot of red dots. 

I was very impressed by it - and I'll explain why below. 

You can see photos I took last night in this album on my Facebook Page.

You can see all the artworks via this page on the BPAP website. Click the pic to see a page of bio and artworks for each artist. All sold paintings are clearly marked up.

Why this exhibition looks impressive

Membership of the group: While this is a plein air group, it's not open to all painters who are plein air painters. Those being invited to become members over the course of the last three years are:

• all experienced artists generally - many are professional artists with some having a career that has lasted decades
• many have been to art school
• they are all very experienced in working plein air and 
• all have produced a lot of quality artwork over a longish period of time.

I would suggest that a page on their website talking about how to apply to become a member would be useful.

Exhibiting artists at the British Plein Air Artists PV (30th October 2023)

Many of them are also members of one or more of the National Art Societies. The majority are Full or Associate members of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and some are members of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and/or the Wapping Group of Artists.

There is a little bit of a sense of the group being the plein air arm of the ROI - although I think it might also be that the ROI has taken on more active plein air painters in recent years!

The 27 exhibiting artists for the 2023 exhibition are listed below. 

The 7 women artists make up 26% of the exhibiting artists. I suggest this could be more - maybe a point for consideration when considering future members?

• Adebanji Alade - President of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• David Bachmann
• Trevor Chamberlain ROI RSMA
• Roy Connelly
• David Curtis ROI RSMA
• Tony Dakin
• Roger Dellar RPI PS RI ARSMA
• Tim King PCAFAS
• Sarah Manolescue AROI
• Tom Marsh ARSMA AROI
• David Pilgrim ROI
• Valérie Pirlot AROI (6 paintings sold)
• Rob Pointon ROI
• Georgina Potter 
• Adam Ralston ROI
• Michael Richardson WGA
• Andrew Roberts 
• Chris Robinson RIBA
• Maria Rose AROI (6 paintings sold)
• Tushar Sabale WGA
• Daisy Simms Hilditch
• Tom Stevenson ROI SWAc
• John Stillman RSMA WGA
• Haidee-Jo Summers VPROI RSMA
• Mo Teeuw IEA
• Karl Terry RSMA
• Johnny Walsom ROI RSMA

Five of the seven female painters pictured below.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Valérie Pirlot AROI (@valeriepirlotart)

Nature / quality of artwork: 215 artworks are on display (which is a good indicator for anybody thinking about hiring this gallery for an exhibition of similar sized artworks).

Most of the artwork are plein air paintings. They cover a very wide range of locations ranging from "home turf" for individual painters, to various places in London and other locations - typically in the UK - that the painters have visited.

The one thing for me is I'd have liked to have seen an indication of which:

• started plein air
• completed plein air
• completed in the studio
• studio art from a plein air sketch

I think that's helpful to the viewing public and also helps to keep the group focused on what the exhibition is all about. 

Private View

Size of artwork: It's the first time for a long time that I've seen an exhibition which is made up of medium and small size artworks.

The three galleries and the exhibition all looked well designed with walls with two rows of paintings small and medium sized paintings at a good height - with the eyes moving up or down easily. They are all well lit.

I gather the previous exhibitions had established that larger studio finished artwork is much less likely to do well at an exhibition which is being promoted as being about plein air painting - and the decision was made to go with small and mediums sizes for this one.

I think that was an inspired decision as it results in a very coherent exhibition where the smaller sized works do NOT appear to be filling in the gaps between the larger artworks.

A wall of small and medium sized paintings

Media used: Most of the paintings are in oil. This is not uncommon in terms of media often used by plein air artists and by members of the ROI!

Review: A Girl about Town by Rosa Sepple

Rosa Sepple PPRI seems to have settled on 50 paintings as a goodly number for a solo show. This is how many paintings she has in her latest exhibition "A Girl About Town" which is on at the new RWS Galleries at 3 Whitcomb Street (next to the National Gallery) in central London.

If you're an artist, I recommend you take a look at an exhibition by an artist who is renowned for having a very good track record in solo shows and sells lots of paintings!

If you're a collector, I recommend you take a look at artwork which is very different from most art you see in galleries and exhibitions.

Rosa Sepple and the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night (SOLD)

The exhibition has been organised by Adrian Hill Fine Art who has been selling Rosa's artwork to a very enthusiastic set of collectors for quite a while. He's one of those gallerists who's got a very good portfolio of artists he represents and others whose work he sells. The paintings are all presented extremely well using the same black frames which are used for all Rosa's paintings.

The exhibition at the RWS Whitcomb Galleries, 3 - 5 Whitcomb Street, London WC2H 7HA is on

• From:  Tuesday 12th - To: Saturday 23rd September
• Hours: 11am - 6pm daily (Saturday 23rd 11am - 2pm Only)

On Private View night I walked into a gallery with a LOT of red spots for sales already in evidence plus a number of green ones for those reserved prior to the collector visiting the show.

To date (14th September), after the exhibition has been open for 4 days she's sold 24 paintings of the 50 paintings with three more reserved. So basically she's almost certainly sold half the show with more than a week to go! 

In essence, it's art from the perspective of a young woman - with sparkle - with dreams about what might be! Rosa's paintings are very much uniquely hers.  For those who are interested, the subject matter sales split as follows:

• Party Girls
• Single women
• Couples 
• Landscapes (typically maritime and Venice)

However, aspects of Rosa's paintings do remind me of two artists who have been extremely popular in the UK:

• Beryl Cook - the fascination of things which rather larger middle aged women do - with various added fun components; and 
• the landscapes and narratives of LS Lowry with added whimsical components. 

Rosa Sepple is an artist who likes to paint narratives which tell stories or evoke feelings of "fun" and/or "feeling good". If your paintings can make others smile and feel good too, you can sell a lot of paintings! 

"Dance to the Music" by Rosa Sepple

Interestingly it also reminded me that, in general, I see very few paintings by women of things women like to do. Which is maybe a thought to ponder on for all the female artists out there. 

Personally, I like her larger narrative paintings with lots of people doing lots of things. They have the capacity to make me stop and look for a long time - in much the same way as LS Lowry paintings have done for many people in the past.

I also very much like her skills in the use of collage and frottage to give the paintings textural interest.

The Village Green by Rosa Sepple

Rosa makes it her practice to develop and hold a number of solo shows - in liaison with Adrian Hill - for her very unique subject matter and style which draws a number of avid collectors. It's not the sort of art you see in every gallery - you need somebody who believes in you and Adrian certainly does that. 

I have to highlight that it's not the sort of art I buy. The first time I saw her work - a long time ago in the RWS Open at the Bankside Gallery - I found myself saying to myself, in a fairly pompous huffy way, things like "But you're not allowed to put lots of glitter in paintings!" However I was VERY wrong!  Sparkle can sell paintings!

I now absolutely and totally get why her art is so popular with so many people. Many of the paintings remind me of parties I went to back in the 60s and 70s and people do like fun paintings!

Party Girls by Rosa Sepple in "A Girl About Town"

Party girls in the Basement Gallery

The exhibition also looks absolutely splendid in the brand new RWS Whitcomb Galleries (one on the ground floor and two more in the basement). It's looking very much like an excellent place to hold a solo show. (As somebody who is disabled, I also was very impressed with the lift and facilities for visitors)

I had to wait until the end of the Private View evening to get photos of the galleries without LOTS of people in front of the paintings.

Two Basement Galleries

One final point to ponder