Grant Foster's 'Home To My Teenage Bedroom' at Phoenix Art Space Explores Memory Through Paintings

Grant Foster's exhibition 'Home To My Teenage Bedroom' runs from 1 March to 13 April 2025 at Phoenix Art Space in Brighton. Curated with Laurence Hill, the show features fifteen paintings, many freestanding on wooden structures that allow viewers to interact by turning them. Works include 'Nature V. Nurture' (2024), 'Help' (2023), 'Psychiatric Hospitals, Full, No. 3' (2020), 'St Francis (To the Stars) (Matter without Hierarchy)' (2024), 'Queendom' (2024), 'Rat King (1576)' (2024), and 'Panspermia' (2024). Foster's wall text notes that teenage years are decisive for forming interests. The installation includes a video projection 'Telly with Mum' that repeats every 43 seconds. An annex displays over two hundred drawings, paintings, notes, and printed reproductions on paper, with phrases like 'Love and fear' and 'MEMORY IS WHAT DOESN’T DISINTERGRATE'. Foster's studio process involves collecting images through free association. The exhibition explores memory and imagination, with paintings often having detailed backsides, such as 'Help' featuring a daffodil image and handwritten text. Foster published 'A Year of Kindness', which includes a photograph of his mother and uncle with a swan. The review is by Geoff Hands in March 2025.