Born in New Zealand in 1950, Peter T. Foster has devoted his life to mastering the art of oil painting. He studied art in New Zealand and Australia before undertaking an informal apprenticeship with a Dutch painter, whose mentorship introduced him to classical methods and a deep understanding of chiaroscuro.

After several formative years in Australia, Foster moved to Europe, first to England and later to Florence, Italy. By the mid-1980s, he had embarked on a professional painting career, exhibiting at a gallery on Florence’s Via Ricasoli.

Throughout the 1990s, he honed his craft by reproducing 17th- and 18th-century Italian and Dutch Old Master works—an experience that refined his technical vocabulary and introduced him to gilding, a technique he later incorporated into select still lifes.

In 1996, Foster relocated to Venice, focusing primarily on private commissions. A decade later, he returned to Florence, opening his current atelier on Via del Porcellana, where he continues to paint and exhibit.

His work has been shown in galleries across London, Venice, and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, attracting an international collector base.

 ARTISTIC VISION & METHOD

Peter Foster’s paintings are rooted in the chiaroscuro tradition—using dramatic contrasts of light and shadow to create depth, atmosphere, and a quiet sense of mystery.

Inspired by masters such as Caravaggio, Foster arranges everyday objects—ceramic vessels, engraved metal, glassware, and fruit—into carefully balanced compositions that reveal beauty in simplicity.

Working exclusively from life, he arranges his subjects in a controlled setting, using natural northern light to achieve subtle tonal gradations. His unconventional preparation of painting grounds infuses his works with an inner radiance, allowing textures—translucent grapes, porous ceramics, delicate leaves—to emerge vividly from the darkness.

His still lifes are realistic yet never photographic, offering viewers an intimate encounter with familiar forms transformed by light.

Simplicity is the hallmark of his style, achieved through composition and the balance of light and shadow. The contrasts—transparent and solid, hard and soft, warm and cool—create a quiet poetry on the canvas.

At the heart of Foster’s work lies the mystery of existence: from shadow emerges the visible world, dazzling us with the fragile beauty of mortal things, captured in a fleeting moment and made eternal through art.