New Zealand-based sculptor Ben Foster draws upon the physical landscape of home, with his abstract figurative works and kinetic sculptures mirroring the dramatic surroundings of the Kaikoura mountains and sea. His artistic practice serves as a vehicle through which he explores human interactions with the land and animals with which we share our lives and spaces.

The stark geometry of Foster’s sculptural practice reveals the artist’s ongoing quest for achieving perfection. Shaping familiar objects into smooth, generic beings, Foster’s works resist any psychological insight. Foster’s sculptures accomplish a subtle balance between static form and floating motion, ingeniously culminating the natural and the manmade. Throughout his practice, Foster distils forms to an essential core, realigning manufactured structures with their natural origins, while evoking the functional elegance of utilitarian objects.

Through his consideration of anatomy and form, Foster delineates essential features while obscuring detail, allowing abstract approximations to stand in for the nuance of curve and organic shapes. Foster expertly extracts vital details and often communicates them through geometric facets. The angular exteriors and unfamiliar surfaces of polygon structures strip away any individual monumentality, yet ensure the works retain their sculptural focus. Foster’s works are convincing; embodying their animality while avoiding sentimentality.

Testament to Foster’s technical expertise and skilled craftsmanship, the high level of finish in his work comes from a strong engineering focus in his practice, which sees him take inspiration from industrial components resulting in sleek forms. Foster’s organically-inspired aluminium and stainless steel sculptures are dynamic, tactile and elegant. In his more recent work, the linear planes imply the design of digital CAD models and the art of origami; suggesting these works could be molded from resin or even folded from paper.