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ARTandtheCITY by Jim Magner
ARTIST PORTRAIT: CHERYL FOSTER
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magination. Cheryl Foster was born with an inherent sense of fantasy. It took her to wonderful places as a child; images danced behind her eyes without giving themselves away in the grave confines of a classroom ... or in those places that demand seriousness. They traveled from her imagination to her fingertips and onto any surface in close vicinity. With many kids, the fantasies of childhood become drained by demands to conform: color within the lines and think inside the confines of rules and dis-
ciplines. But not Cheryl. The thoughts burst out and spread in all directions and in all fusions and fashions. Cheryl received an art degree from Howard University but was convinced that she needed a different way to make a living. She became a real estate appraiser, putting art aside for 20 years. Then she came back to it. Back to happiness. You see it today in her large outside public works like “Phoenix,” one of six fiberglass figures on the grounds of the Edgar Mills Health Center in Ft. Lauderdale. It’s about survival and rebirth. You see it in the bright shards of stained glass and other materials that finesse themselves into living expressions of the fantasies that come to live, not rest, on walls and floors, pillars and sculpted statues. Cheryl also connects with singular and unique personas: living people. The portraits are not just a matter of likeness but are placed in an aura, a globe of personality ‒ sometimes in groups bonding together, or couples whose hopes and dreams are engulfed in a moment. When you look at “Golden Crows,” her prize-winning painting in the current Hill Center show, you are drawn into a maze of ideas and emotions. Eyes search for your soul without giving away the secrets that dance behind them (see At the Galleries). You can see all of her works at www.cherylfosterartist.com.
Jim Magner’s Thoughts on Art
“GOLDEN CROWS”, 2021. Oil on two, 37” x 48” stacked canvases. Raucous Jamaican Crows, A bold, fierce statement in gold. To canvases, two lovers, three loud, early morning, feathered creatures. Spent weeks with them in Sunning Hills, Jamaica wallowing in callaloo leaves and warm, sticky golden, honey hives.
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This fictional conversation is from a play I wrote a few years ago. But I’m afraid it is not actually fiction. Like Cheryl Foster, we need to hold on to the sensations ‒ the making, looking, listening, writing and reading. The arts are all we have to keep us human. Me: The world is not the same. Where are we? Where are we going? She: The world is no longer rocketing into the future, it simply is. Me: A virtual reality?
“THE HOPE”, 35”x46”. Oil on Canvas. Combined hopes and dreams engulfed in one anticipated moment bringing a lifetime of conjoint joy.
She: The new super reality. God is digital. Technology is the new god. Me: So, in the sophisticated, engineered, super-intelligent, non-biological universe, what happens to imagination ‒ dreams, whimsy, art, dance, music, storytelling, poetry and, most of all, humor? And hope? Where’s the hope? She: Hope … dreams … wishes? It’s only in the connecting, the hearing, the listening … the coming together. It will be dismissed. Me: Artists have always been able to make hope come alive ‒ it’s that glow in the back of the cave. Art has the power to bring people together. She: Sensations bring us together, the things that are felt, not easily defined or measured. It’s the beauty inside our minds. Me: But what if we all become smart robots? What if there aren’t any artists? Just “AI”? What happens to imagination, dreams … the flights of fanciful beauty?
