ARTIST BIO

​

Somerset based artist, printmaker Maxine Foster draws inspiration from the urban and natural environments such as graffiti, decay, and day-to-day marks found in cities, often making connections with their water sources - erosion and decay within their beaches and harbours. Having one foot in the city and one foot on the coast has had a profound effect on her and her practice, emulating the ebb and flow of the tide. Whether creating pieces inspired by the urban landscape or the natural landscape, it’s an ingrained, intuitive response to what is in front of her. She goes with the flow: the flow between the two personalities of her practice. 

​

She works mainly in the mediums of monotype, intaglio and relief, frequently using palimpsest within the complexity of her multi-layered prints. Inspired by her surroundings, these seemingly disparate urban and natural environments are linked, by decades of unique erosion and decay, brought about by natural and man-made interventions, introducing meandering connections with water. She often uses complex layers, combining multiple print processes, layering up the substate with dry-point etching, carborundum and collagraph, sometimes using palimpsest-like erasure, chine collé and monoprinted collage.

 

Maxine graduated from The University of the West of England, Bristol in June 2018 with a Masters in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking, going on to win best emerging student/recent graduate artist at the Flourish Award 2018. More recently in 2021, Maxine’s multi-layered print ‘Solitude ll’ won the Printmaking Prize, at the Bath Society of Artist’s Annual Summer Exhibition (Bath). Being an artist for most of her adult life, she has contributed to a number of wonderful exhibitions, including The Victoria Gallery (Bath) and RWA (Bristol) Summer Shows, The RBSA (Birmingham), The Master’s ‘Screen and Stone’ (Bankside Gallery, London), Interruptions Exhibition (Athens), Gallery 57 (London) and the Irving Contemporary (Oxford).