Dulcie Foo Fat (born 1946) is a British-born Canadian

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, based in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. Foo Fat is known for her large representational paintings made from her photographs of the microscopic landscape of the forest floor, particularly in the Rocky Mountains, or of the bottoms of tidal pools, that reconcile

abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

and magic realism. They suggest, without stating it, the fragility of the environment.

Life

Born Dulcie Dixon in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England, Foo Fat earned a teaching certificate and bachelor's degree from

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

in 1969. She met and married France Foo Fat in London, and the couple immigrated to Canada in 1970. Four years later, Foo Fat earned a Master of Arts degree from the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

. Her husband France died in 2018. The couple had four daughters.

Career

Dulcie Foo Fat Irises in the Generalife Gardens

Foo Fat has earned recognition for her

photorealistic Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

paintings. She is primarily known for her close-up paintings of landscapes, including forest floors and tidal pools. Her style has been called "abstract realism" because the scale of her paintings lends an abstract quality to her work. In 1987, Monique Westra curated a survey exhibition for the Whyte Museum in Banff, ''Dance with Minutiae: the Paintings of Dulcie Foo Fat.'' The show, Foo Fat's first solo exhibition in a public gallery, was favourably reviewed. The

Glenbow Museum The Glenbow Museum is an art and history regional museum in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The museum focuses on Western Canadian history and culture, including Indigenous perspectives. The Glenbow was established as a private non-profi ...

, Calgary;

McMichael Canadian Art Collection The McMichael Canadian Art Collection (MCAC) is an art museum in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located on a property in Kleinburg, an unincorporated village in Vaughan. The property includes the museum's main building, a sculpture garde ...

Kleinburg Kleinburg is an unincorporated village in the city of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, an art gallery with a focus on the Group of Seven, and the Kortright Centre for Conservation. In 2001, the villa ...

; the

Mendel Art Gallery The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon G ...

, Saskatoon; University of Lethbridge Art Gallery; the University of Calgary; the Alberta Foundation for the Arts; and the Whyte Museum in Banff are among public institutions holding examples of Foo Fat's work.

Life

Career

References

Further reading