Foster's work as a painter centers on water; she uses her art to examine its impact on people's lives, subconscious, and the environment. She initially gained recognition for her photography, particularly her candid portrayals of older couples "at ease in aging skin." Foster has exhibited her work since the late 1970s. In the 1990s, her paintings and installations were influenced by the
AIDS epidemic, focusing on themes of healing and mortality. Known as an accomplished colorist who uses a limited palette and multiple layers of paint, Foster works in "the romantic landscape tradition of
Dove,
Hartley,
Burchfield and
O'Keeffe." Art critic
Carter Ratcliff notes, although "labeled a realist, a recorder of visible facts, she turns out to be a visionary." Her artistic practice is influenced by
Buddhist philosophy and practice, as demonstrated in her public discussions that explore the relationship between Buddhist practice and art, including conversations with composer
Philip Glass. Their dialogue was later used as the basis for
Play with Time, a music theater work written by Eric Henry Sanders and presented by the Tanglewood Learning Institute, an initiative by the
Boston Symphony Orchestra that aims to enhance the cultural and educational offerings at
Tanglewood, in August 2025. The work, described as “poetic” and producing “a nearly out of body sensation” evoked “Samuel Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot.” Foster has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group shows in the United States and Europe. Her solo exhibitions include five
Water Way shows at the Fischbach Gallery in New York City, and an exhibition with an accompanying lecture at the
Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries. Notable group exhibitions include
The Flag Project for the inauguration of the
Rubin Museum of Art, and two exhibitions at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine: the "groundbreaking"
The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies on the
feminine divine, and the
Value of Sanctuary: Building a House Without Walls, all in New York City. In 2022, Foster participated in the "I AM WATER" juried exhibition by Ecoartspace, which featured her oil painting
Molten Sea on a billboard in Manhattan. She has also been in exhibitions at ecoartspace in New Mexico, including
ecoconsciousness (2020) and
Earthkeepers Handbook (2023). In New York, her work appeared in
Scape - Land City, Sea and Sky in Southold (2022), and for East End Arts in Riverhead,
Detour IV (2023), and at their Hamptons Fine Art Fair booth in Southampton (2024.) Foster and artist Hilda O'Connell contributed to Art Beyond Sight's publication
Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment, an educational book and compact disk designed to provide visual experiences to individuals with impaired sight and
blind artists. A corresponding video,
Art Beyond Sight: A Demonstration of Practical Techniques, was co-produced with the
Museum of Modern Art. Her work is held in private and public collections including the Garrison Institute, Artsbridge and the Lambertville Chamber of Commerce, Commerce Bancshares, Merck and Company, Microsoft Corporation, and General Electric.
Curator Foster is also known for her role curating and participating in the "monumental" exhibition,
The Value of Water at the
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, where the "cathedral staff are to be congratulated for having the vision to raise the funds and commission so ambitious an exhibition from so clearly competent a curator." The largest exhibition to ever appear at the cathedral, it anchored a year long initiative by the cathedral on our dependence upon water. Over forty artists were featured, including
Jenny Holzer,
Robert Longo,
Mark Rothko,
William Kentridge,
April Gornik,
Kara Walker,
Kiki Smith,
Pat Steir,
Edwina Sandys,
Alice Dalton Brown,
Teresita Fernandez,
Eiko Otake and
Bill Viola. In April 2023 Foster curated
The Rivers exhibition which complemented the
Pathways to Planetary Health Initiative hosted at the
Garrison Institute. Ten artists affiliated with Think About Water (see below, Activist) collaborated to underscore the imminent threats confronting freshwater ecosystems.
Activist In the 1970s, Foster observed the situation of the
Duwamish people along the Duwamish River in Seattle. The Duwamish, who had historically inhabited the area, faced challenges when the government condemned their houseboat residences and adjacent ancestral lands. Foster supported their peaceful protests by participating in a letter-writing campaign. To educate about the
water crisis and
water scarcity, she presented her work to two hundred and fifty scientists, staged a performance based on the 2017
sewage spill into
Puget Sound at the Sage Assembly 2017,
Exploring a Catastrophe to Water Through Science and Art; and conducted an exhibition and talk at the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries.
Like a Circle in Water, part of the
Elements video series commissioned by the Buddhist
Tricycle Foundation in 2014, was an official selection of the Awareness Festival and Blue Ocean Film Festival.
Think About Water Artist Collective Foster founded and curates Think About Water, an
artist collective of ecological activists which spotlights their work using water as their subject or medium. Members include indigenous
water protectors Charlotte Coté, and Dr. Kelsey Leonard; Basia Irland,
Aviva Rahmani,
Betsy Damon,
Diane Burko,
Leila Daw,
Stacy Levy,
Meridel Rubenstein, Rosalyn Driscoll, Doug Fogelson, Giana Pilar González, Rachel Havrelock,
Susan Hoffman Fishman, Fritz Horstman, Sant Khalsa, Ellen Kozak,
Anna Macleod, Ilana Manolson, Lauren Rosenthal McManus, Randal Nichols, Dixie Peaslee, Jaanika Peerna,
Aviva Rahmani, Lisa Reindorf,
Naoe Suzuki, Linda Troelle, Leslie Sobel and Adam Wolpert. ==Selected bibliography==