Rachel Foster’s artwork is displayed by the Oklahoma Visual Arts coalition as a temporary exhibit. The exhibit featured only four artists from Kansas and four artists from Oklahoma. Photo courtesy of Rachel Foster

One of Butler’s own staff members, Professor of Art Rachel Foster, has original artwork displayed at a temporary exhibit. The artwork is displayed by the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition as a part of their Concept and Focus exhibitions and is to be shown in Tulsa, Oklahoma and in Wichita.

“It is a regional artist exchange,” Foster said. “So there are four Kansas artists and four Oklahoma artists, and we all did a group show. It was a competition, so I sent in pictures of my work and wrote a little proposal about what I would do if I had the opportunity, and I was selected.”

The artists were to send their work and proposals to the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and a select few were to be chosen.

“They wanted to give a few artists the opportunity to focus on this smaller body of work rather than taking work from the other work they had done,” Foster said. “So I made work specifically for this, and the work had to have not been shown elsewhere.”

Foster had gotten an early interest in art and painting and has been working on artwork for a while now.

“I have been drawing for as long as I can remember,” Foster said. “I wanted to become a painter after I saw art since my dad would take me to museums, and I would see Frida Paula’s work then when I was young, about 10 or 11. I didn’t actually get started with oils until I was in my early 20s.”
Foster started working on her pieces as soon as she could and spent as much time on them as she could as well.

“I started working on them over the fall, as soon as I was selected,” Foster said. “I have six in the show; it is kind of a lot but I had started like 12, going overboard and started way too many for it. That is just what I do. A couple of them that I worked on did not end up working for me, so I ended up abandoning those.”

Though Foster teaches many painting classes, she does not mention her exhibition work often.

“I don’t really talk about the exhibit much in the classroom,” Foster said. “They know that I am having an exhibit, and I had worked on my paintings in the classroom when they didn’t need me. I’d work on a painting in there, and then they would ask about it, but I am not here to brag about myself.”
The exhibition will be shown in Tulsa, Oklahoma through Sunday, March 22 then will be moved to Harvester Arts in Wichita from Friday, May 1 to Monday, June 15.