Rachel Foster’s ‘Empathetic Objects’ at Grove Gallery

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Photo: Grove Gallery

"Inkwell" by Rachel Foster

"Inkwell" by Rachel Foster

The works in Rachel Foster’s current exhibition, “Empathetic Objects” at Grove Gallery in Walker’s Point, on view until March 23, beg the viewer to take them for granted. They hide in plain sight like purloined letters in a digital parlor, only before eventually revealing their nature … and our relationship to the nature of their nature. Yes, it’s kind of a meta-proposition, and those layers of meta take some effort and attention to peel apart. Which is a big part of the show’s charm and generosity; it demands some effort but leaves us with pearls if we do. 

That effort will inevitably begin with an initial read of her subject matter as somewhat inert, locked helplessly between the mundane and mysterious. For example, the work Runthrough offers an intricately ornamented plate seen straight-on with an image of a bearded man impaling three figures at the center. Simply describing the subject matter creates the most bizarre nesting doll of cases, from the grizzly subject scene, to its secondary meaning as depicted on a vintage plate, to its neutered final incarnation as one of Foster’s deadpan screen prints. A final glance at the image against its smug white background makes one laugh at the anticlimax of it all. 

Another piece called Gender Bender presents a bulbous double-stacked hooded object made up of a filigree of organic cells. Or is it a figural stack of rigid, mushroom-like organic skins? Clunky attempts at descriptions illustrate the point: rhetorical wheel spinning can’t go anywhere without traction that only context can provide. The strange asymmetry between complex forms with little content is the throughline in Foster’s work. Each piece builds on the premise that without a supporting structural framework of history, culture, purpose and society, one is doomed to watch meaning slip away. Perhaps the most layered example is a wide, narrow antique vessel with a whisp of smoke snaking out its spout. It immediately conjures thoughts of genies and Arabian Nights until we realize we have no idea what any of those associations really mean. The image with all its apparent promise and fantasy is finally just a copy without an original. An empty set, a syntax error. 

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Photo: Grove Gallery

"Summoning" by Rachel Foster

"Summoning" by Rachel Foster

This idea of dissolution is important throughout Foster’s work, as the screen-printed objects each purposefully reveal their components RGB bits. The whisp of smoke from the bottle breaks down into a grainy Ben Day pattern, turning magic into sand, which falls through our fingertips. This very deliberate process causes each work to be as informationally unstable as they are visually stable. They microscope, telescope, resolve, and crumble apart, constantly reminding us that meaning travels in waves of interconnection rather than particles of matter. 

Foster and I had a conversation in the gallery about how the internet serves us information: atomized into components in the same way an image is separated into colors, philosophies are pressed into ideologies, and data reduced to ones and zeros. Civilization is getting flatter even as it’s becoming more intricate. We’ve gone from cave paintings to cuneiform tablets to moving images only to revert back to where we started. We both concluded that while the bots dismantle the world to its bony components, our duty is to keep all the soft tissue of human context alive. And this isn’t easy when the machines become our connective fiber. Apparently, the medium is still the message so many years after we first heard the warning. I agreed that I’d do my best to stay soft and sticky. And Foster will continue to show us how objects are only as empathetic as they are willing to bob impossibly in a wavey ocean of human interconnection. 

Event Listings: February 25– March 2, 2024

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Sunday, February 25, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Tours: Architecture and Collection Highlights
• Sunday, February 25, 2–3 p.m.

MARN ART+CULTURE Hub

• MARN Trivia with Sculpture Milwaukee
• Monday, February 26, 6–8 p.m.

Saint Kate, the Arts Hotel

• Artist Talk: Dawn Cerny
• Wednesday, February 28, 6:30 p.m.

Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum

• Guided Tour of the Villa
• Thursday, February 29, 3–4 p.m.

Kohler Art Center

• “Too Long; Didn’t Read!”
• Thursday, February 29, 6 p.m.

Cedarburg Art Museum

• Student Art Matters Exhibition Opening: Cedarburg & Port Washington/Saukville Elementary Schools
• Thursday, February 29, 4–6 p.m.

Jewish Museum Milwaukee

• Virtual Lecture,  “Spaces of Defiance: The Vilna Ghetto Library”
• Thursday, February 29, 5:30–6:45 p.m.

MARN ART+CULTURE Hub

• Creativity x Design: Black in Milwaukee's Creative Economy
• Thursday, February 29, 6–8 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Lecture: “Rare and Everywhere: Prints by Rembrandt and His Contemporaries in 17th-Century Holland”
• Thursday, February 29, 6:15–7:15 p.m.

Mahogany Gallery

• Black in Latin America Viewing & Discussion - Part 4
• Thursday, February 29, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

David Barnett Gallery

• Solo Opening, Rogues Artist Group
• Friday, March 1, 5 p.m.

Walker’s Point Center for the Arts

• Closing Reception, “Future Fibers”
• Friday, March 1, 5–7 p.m.

James May Gallery

• Opening Reception, “Geochroma”
• Friday, March 1, 5–8 p.m.

Milwaukee Art Museum

• Drop-In Art Making: Kohl’s Art Studio
• Saturday, March 2, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

MARN ART+CULTURE Hub

• Personalization and Storytelling in AI Art
• Saturday, March 2, 11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

David Barnett Gallery

• Artist Talks, Rogues Group
• Saturday, March 2, 1 p.m.

Hawthorn Contemporary

• Opening Reception: Dawn Cerny, “The Coconut Effect”
• Saturday, March 2, 6–9 p.m.

VAR Gallery, 2nd Street

• Opening Reception: “Emerging Artists Exhibition 2024”
• Saturday, March 2, 6–9 p.m.

Saint Kate, the Arts Hotel

• AIR Time, Art & Studio Tour with AIR Anwar Floyd-Pruitt
• Saturday, March 2, 6:30 p.m.