The Pit is pleased to present Bella Foster: Does the earth love you back? An opening reception will be held on September 9, 2018 from 4-7pm, and the exhibition will be on view through October 21, 2018.

The summer of 2018 has been one of the hottest on record, not just here in California but all over the world. After five years of drought, California has seen wildfires starting earlier every summer, burning with more intensity and more erratically than ever before. After moving from Los Angeles to the rural northern California town of Grass Valley earlier this year, Bella Foster’s world was illuminated by sunlight filtered through thick smoke drifting in from two giant wildfires burning nearby. Her new watercolor paintings on paper use vivid colors and earth tones to reflect on the simultaneously horrible and beautiful smoke-tinged light bathing her new surroundings. While reflecting on nature and our relationship to the natural world, Foster also grapples with art historical references and influences. Her brilliant palette and frontal compositions recall Milton Avery’s poetic, reductive landscapes, and forms familiar from Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth sculptures populate the scenes. David Hockney and Paul Klee have also been influential on Foster’s new body of work, as has an interview with botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer. As a college professor, Kimmerer is known to ask her botany students, “Does the earth love you back?” This question has been top of mind for Foster this hot, smoky summer, as she tries to answer through her paintings.

Bella Foster was born in Los Angeles, CA in 1985 and lives in Grass Valley, CA. She received a Bachelor of Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY in 1997. One person exhibitions of her work have been presented at Canada, New York, NY (2017), South Willard, Los Angeles, CA (2015), and Art Since the Summer of 69, New York, NY (2010), and a two-person exhibition with Elwyn Palmerton was presented at Southfirst, Brooklyn, NY in 2008. Foster’s work has been featured in thematic exhibitions such as Palo Santo, Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA (2018); Fort Greene, Venus Over Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Material, Salon 94, New York, NY (2012); Greater Brooklyn, CRG Gallery, New York, NY (2005); and Where are we going? Where do we come from? And where are we going?, Champion Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA (2004).