Jean Foos (b. 1953, Rochester, NY) holds a B.F.A. from Cooper Union and an M.F.A. from Tyler School of Art. She recently mounted a solo exhibition of her painted sculptures at Local Project Art Space in Long Island City. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Queens Council on the Arts, and New York City Artist Corps (NYFA, DCLA and Mayor’s Office). She has been awarded artist studio residencies at 4heads on Governors Island, Culture Lab LIC, Whitney Museum ISP, Provincetown Workshop, and Temple University Abroad, Rome.

 

Primarily an abstract painter, Foos develops relief sculptures and installations that play with the same grid structure and tactile qualities of her paintings. Her varied and reductive visual language transforms found objects and commercial packaging. For her installations, Foos favors ad hoc urban settings, such as long-abandoned buildings and community gardens. Curator Jonathan Weinberg included Foos in two shows highlighting her involvement with the East Village and downtown artists in the 1980s and 90s entitled “Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983” and “Painting to Survive: 1985–1995”. In 2020, she participated in shows at the Susquehanna Art Museum (Harrisburg, PA) and The Corner at Whitman-Walker (Washington, D.C.). Her sculptural tower, “Convulsive Beauty in the Fur Teacup Bar” was exhibited in the Southeast Queens Biennial (2022), and has previously appeared in Empirical Nonsense Gallery and the “Every Woman Biennial” (both NYC, 2019). Foos' work was first shown at Hal Bromm Gallery in the 2020 “COLOR” group exhibition and again in the 2021 “Metamorphosis” group exhibition.

 

Along with her fine art practice, Foos has a passion for graphic design that archives and elevates the work of her fellow artists—poets, painters, photographers, and performers. In 1990 Foos worked with her friend and fellow artist David Wojnarowicz to create the catalog and poster for his Tongues of Flame solo exhibition at Illinois State University. Her most recent publication celebrates a 30-year collaboration with poets Jessica Grim and Melanie Neilson, titled “Alsop’s Tables”. Foos lives and works in New York City