Plein air artist Tony Foster has been charged by bears in the woods and peccaries in the rain forest, and bitten and stung by countless insects, among other perils, on his journeys to capture scenes in the wilderness around the world.
Hundreds of plein air painters on Cape Ann and the North Shore seek out ocean vistas and iconic New England panoramas when they head outdoors to paint, but this British artist takes the art form to an extreme. His peculiar story will come to the big screen in Rockport on the closing day of the Boston Film Festival on Monday, Sept. 21 at 4 p.m. at Shalin Liu Performance Center with the East Coast premiere of “Tony Foster: Painting at the Edge.”
Both the artist and filmmaker will be in attendance for a question-and-answer after the film, which premiered in London last November.
Plein air painting, which means to paint with the scene in direct view of the artist, dates back to the 19th century. Foster, however, has embarked on painting trips that only the intrepid dare to take, enduring blizzards, stinging winds and tropical heat.
For more than 40 years, Foster has painted everything from Mount Everest at an altitude of more than 18,500 feet to the hottest place on earth in California’s Death Valley. He learned how to mix gin in watercolor when working in sub-freezing temperatures. He travels on foot, traversing waterways with rafts and canoes, carrying painting and camping equipment, to reach the landscapes that he will immortalize in his artworks.
His adventures have resulted in 14 major exhibitions across five continents.
The plein air works capture scenes from mountains to canyons, from rainforests to deserts, and from the arctic to the tropics. He does not use photography or sketches. He paints in plain view of the scene.
Always an environmentalist, Foster, now 80, first dove into pop art as a young artist, but he later changed direction.
“I got fed up using second-hand imagery, and in the end I realized I didn’t care that much about the subject I was painting and thought that I should paint what I care about,” said Foster in a recent interview. “I always enjoyed adventure so I thought I should incorporate that into the work. In a way, the journeys got more and more extreme, and the more I tested myself.”
His mission: to bring awareness to wilderness destruction and climate change.
“My hope is that when my work is exhibited, not only will people be struck by the extraordinary beauty of the places I find, but it will also strengthen their resolve to protect these places from depredation,” he said in his artist bio.
As an outdoor painter, the weather conditions impact the artworks. One time, he had three-quarters of his work washed away by a drenching rain but in the end, his wife commented on its beauty “like the ghost of a painting,” a comment which washed away some of the artist’s disappointment.
“Another time I was painting the east face of Everest, the face that few people have ever seen or climbed from that side, and we were caught in a blizzard for three days,” recalled Foster. “I was so bored. I looked out and all I could see is snow blowing sideways and the rock face, so I painted that.”
And that was the painting that art collectors wanted to buy.
The filmmaker meets the adventurer-artist
The documentary is directed by David Charles Schendel, who knows Cape Ann well.
Just out of college, Schendel moved to Boston where he worked a side job shucking oysters at the celebrated Evie’s Rudder on the Rocky Neck Art Colony in Gloucester while he was finding his foothold in the film industry. He had rented an apartment in Rockport so he has come full circle at this screening when he returns as an award-winning filmmaker, now based in San Francisco.
The universe aligned for the artist and filmmaker to meet in 2016 when Schendel got a call from the Foster Museum in Palo Alto, California, to do a video for the opening of the museum dedicated to this artist’s work.
“I was at the opening and I didn’t know what Tony looked like. I was looking at a Grand Canyon painting and I heard this voice ask ‘What do you think?’ and I replied that the colors don’t seem real. Well that voice was Tony and we had a laugh,” recalled Schendel. “I later asked if anyone had made a documentary on his life in art.”
After talking about it, they came up with the idea for the film to be like a conversation between two artists and Schendel would go on some painting trips. Much of that footage features the Green River, the Colorado River’s largest tributary. The documentary also includes archival footage of other faraway places.
“I have such a deep respect for this man in the way he has used art to tell the story of nature and how it needs to be in our hearts and soul to love it and protect it,” said Schendel. “You sense the love of nature in his work, and we have to get back to that, to protect it.”
While in these remote locations, Schendel saw a mediative quality to the way Foster works, and he too experienced that as the filmmaker.
“You get into the zone and it connects you with nature in a way that is above and beyond the intellect,” he said. “It’s a spiritual soulful thing with this feeling of peace and calmness when you sit in the wilderness, doing nothing but observing. And if there’s a lesson, I would love it if more people would do that.”
To reserve a seat at the free screening, visit: bostonfilmfestival.org or rockportmusic.org.
Gail McCarthy may be contacted at 978-675-2706, or gmccarthy@northofboston.com.