DENNIS FOSTER // Same Thing Twice

On view February 15–March 29, 2025
Opening reception Saturday, February 15 (2–4pm)

Nationale welcomes back Los Angeles-based painter Dennis Foster for a solo presentation of new works on canvas and paper. Same Thing Twice roots Foster’s characteristic geometric rhythm in rich earth tones, looser silhouettes, and reverent patterns. The paintings on display recall a tender reciprocity with earlier visual impulses while forging a new frontier for the artist. What feels comforting about these works is the warmth and nostalgia they evoke while distancing themselves from any single signifier. There are no intentional references to tangible landmarks or geographical markers. Instead, lush tones of brown, yellow, and blue overwhelm the sight and inherently recall the hues of a resilient California landscape. “Like an aimless drive where a destination reaches its mark by simply following the course ahead,” each painting becomes its own artery within a common language.

The exhibition spans both the front gallery as well as the Project Room, seamlessly blending the dialogue between the use of disparate mediums and forms. Oils meld with Flashe and gouache in an effort to intentionally permeate the rigidity of straight lines and right angles. Recurring checkered markings serve as the only grounding pathways towards something manifest. As in Italian Walk, architectural distortions in the diagonal lines and shifted perspectives butt against unexpected curves and folds. The resulting image shape shifts between a columned facade, a roof structure, or simply large swaths of imagined compositions. Foster’s Calm Paintings on canvas began as smaller color studies that find a kinship in several of the works on paper displayed in tandem. Their freeform exploration informs the larger motif within the exhibition and encourages the work with no conscious direction in mind. As a result, Same Thing Twice approaches interpretation as an activation of feeling through color and symmetry—a process that recalls not only the show’s title but the familiar and tranquil act of driving the same route twice from memory. With this in mind, Foster graciously demonstrates that instinct more than often determines our course.

Dennis Foster lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He has held several solo exhibitions with Ampersand Gallery in Portland, OR, as well as Legion Projects in Sonoma, CA. This is his second solo exhibition at Nationale.

PRESS & MORE
5 Art Gallery and Museum Shows to See in Portland This Spring, Matthew Trueherz, Portland Monthly, February 11, 2025
Things to Do in Portland this Week, Matthew Trueherz, Portland Monthly, February 13, 2025
Recommended / Don’t Miss Visual Arts Pick, Lindsay Costello, EverOut Portland, February 2025

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Paintings