...we can never get at the nature of things from without. However much we may investigate, we obtain nothing but images and names.

Schopenhauer, the World as Will and Representation.

David Forster's intensely wrought landscape paintings refer to the traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Though the scenes depicted are topographically correct, light and colour are altered to create a fictionalised reality, that nonetheless conveys the authority of photo realist document.

By referring to older artistic traditions, the inheritance of narrative and emotional associations with landscape is evoked. However, at the core of the work is the idea of paradox, the contradictory, pairing of ideas. This notion is emphasised through the adjustments made by the artist to the scene.

Thus the work presents the industrialised wilderness of farmland, the well-trodden solitude of the British uplands , or the tame sublime of the country park. In this way the importance of a romantic narrative of landscape is explored, one that tenaciously survives the knowledge of a more prosaic reality.

David Forster: CV

Group Exhibitions

1987-1992 Summer and Winter shows, St James’s Gallery, Bath
1991,1992 Singer and Friedlander exhibition, Mall galleries, London
1991 “The Natural View”, Cutlers exchange, London
1992 Goldberg Art, Argyll Street, London
1993 Happening Gallery, Bristol
1994 “Série Noire”, Galerie le Bateau-Lavoir, Grenoble, France
1998 Compass Gallery, Glasgow
1999 Compass Gallery, Glasgow
2000 ARC, London
2000 Society of Scottish Artists, Edinburgh
2000 Aberdeen Artist’s Society
2000 ABC at Edinburgh College of Art
2001 Royal Society of Scottish Painters in Watercolour
2003 Royal Society of Scottish Painters in watercolour
2004 Royal Scottish Academy
2005 Singer and Friedlander/Sunday Times, Mall Galleries, London
2005 Lynn Painter-Stainer Exhibition, Painters Hall, London
2000,2009 Aberdeen Artists'Society, Aberdeen
2006-2008 Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, Edinburgh
2004,2009,2010 Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2009-2011 The Sunday Times watercolour competition, London
2009-2010 Lynn Painter-Stainer Exhbition, Painter's Hall, London
2006-2011 Society of Scottish Artists, Edinburgh
2011 Visual Arts Scotland, Edinburgh

Solo Exhibitions

1994 Bibliothèque Municipale, Grenoble, France
1995 Galerie le Bateau-Lavoir, Grenoble, France
1997 Galerie le Bateau-Lavoir, Grenoble, France
1997 Musée Jadis, Allevard-les-Bains, France
1999 Patriothall WASPS, Edinburgh
2000 Institut Français d’Ecosse, Edinburgh
2001 Reynolds Gallery, Edinburgh
2002 Collective Gallery, Project Room , Edinburgh
2002 Cossachok Gallery, Glasgow
2005 Merz Gallery, Edinburgh

Awards

2001 John Grey Award, Royal Scottish society of Painters in Watercolour
2003 Edinburgh Arts Club Award, Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour
2005 Singer and Friedlander Watercolour Competition, 2nd prize
2011 Russell Trust Award, Visual Arts Scotland

Principal Collections

Abbey National Building Society, Bath
Theatre Royal, Bath
Bath Dean and Chapter for George Carey
Wheelabrator Headquarters, Allevard-les-Bains, France
City Arts Centre, Edinburgh

Bibliography

Le Dauphiné Libéré, July 1995
Le Dauphiné Libéré, April 1997
Les Affiches de Grenoble et du Dauphiné, April 1997
Frank Pavlov, Divers Cités, Supplément Culturel, March/April 1997
Scotsman, Critic’s choice, Neil Cameron 16:10:2001
Preview, Art Review, Elizabeth Mahoney, Feb, March, 2002
Sunday Herald, Catriona Black, 25.04.04
Edinburgh Evening News, 22 04 04
Sunday Times, 04 09 05