Born in India, educated in England, and a citizen of Canada, Michael Forster had international artistic roots, making it difficult to place his body of work in any one artistic movement or category. The supremacy of color was paramount to Forster, who here subtly blended layers of paint into gently refined compositions. His rich variations, luminous passages and inherent brilliant surface textures remain compelling even in his smaller works. Coupled with Forster's dexterous handling of paint, the richness of his colors make his works truly exceptional. Such varied and richly abstracted pictures place Forster as a stand-out amongst his contemporaries. He remained active in Canada for more than forty-five years and contributed substantially to the role in the cultural history of Canadian art. A frequent exhibitor with the major art societies by the 1930s, and with several of his paintings in the country's major museum collections at an early age by the 1940s, Forster is an artist with a unique and important place in the annals of contemporary art that reaches beyond international borders.
Michael Forster was captivated by celestial patterns in the space galaxies. Pre-dating the travels of the world's astronauts, these rich abstract compositions captured the shifting face of the universe. Such works are unique and place Forster in a class by himself. His passion for color as seen in our A New Day is also evident. As the German art historian Paul Westheim once remarked about Forster:
"Colour is the medium of his expression, he has reduced all that is visible, all that is imaginable to colour, a strange and fantastic world of visionary colour. By means of colour, he knows how to give form to a whole range of emotions and feelings."
A proponent of early Surrealism Forster placed an emphasis on the unconscious life of the artist in his perceptive sensual application of paint. Forster's further concern for the essence of paint itself led him to create mesmerizing surface textures that were deeply personal and filled with emotion. The floating forms in this picture resemble several in Tamayo's works, especially through the all-enveloping, deep, full, and impressive array of color. In his celestial landscape compositions Forster reduced all visible images to the fantastical world of color. Our highly refined and extremely disciplined abstract work boasts luminous and vibrant passages of differing hues that resonate across the canvas and create a luster that is illustrative of the glowing universe and perhaps in our case the sun.
Messum's, London
