Sacred Places

Sacred Places began as a search for the meaning of place and its relationship to spirituality. Traveling throughout the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States (the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet), the wilderness artist Tony Foster sought to experience and document the area's rich blend of cultures and faiths. His time in the region, which he recorded in journals and in his paintings, shaped his understanding of the people who live there and their...
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Sacred Places began as a search for the meaning of place and its relationship to spirituality. Traveling throughout the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States (the area where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet), the wilderness artist Tony Foster sought to experience and document the area's rich blend of cultures and faiths. His time in the region, which he recorded in journals and in his paintings, shaped his understanding of the people who live there and their indelible ties to the land. Comprising works created between 2010 and 2012, Sacred Places not only depicts the beauty of the natural landscape but also represents the deep spiritual connections of the region's inhabitants through Foster's unique addition of artifacts and diary inscriptions. These souvenirs, which are included inside the paintings' frames, serve as physical reminders of his experiences interacting with both the land and its people. Through them, viewers share his struggles to overcome tribal suspicions, extreme weather conditions, loneliness, and frustration. Most importantly, Foster's work serves as an eloquent appeal for the protection of fragile wilderness areas.