OWL Art Gallery- Recent Paintings- Oil and Acrylic by Ben Foster

LITCHFIELD, Conn. - June 17, 2014 - PRLog -- Ben Foster’s boyhood and teenage years growing up in the Litchfield Hills- Goshen, Norfolk, Falls Village- voiced an invitation to become a landscape painter, but it took many years for him to hear this call distinctly.  It wasn’t until he retired from teaching English that he felt more clearly the call of the natural world and an urge to paint the hills, trees and streams of the land around him in Litchfield County.  For him landscape painting is a way of honoring the earth and offering homage to the natural world and his motivation for painting landscapes grows from something deeper than aesthetics and a love of art and pastoral scenery.

Before painting landscapes Ben Foster studied studio painting and drawing at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven and had the good fortune to study oil painting with Ira Barkoff at the Washington Art Association.  A few years ago he mounted a landscape show entitled “Endangered Landscapes”.  With many of our wetlands becoming choked by phragmites, cell towers taking over serene mountain tops, and beautiful farmland being bulldozed for development, the word “endangered” presently applies to much of the landscape here in Litchfield County.  And Ben’s landscape painting is a way for him to express his concern and to offer a call to others to see what he sees.

In the gallery: July 1- August 29. Reception- Thursday, July 3, from 5:00- 7:00 p.m. at the Oliver Wolcott Library, 160 South Street, Litchfield, CT. 06759. 860-567-8030. www.owlibrary.org