Emerging artist: Jillian Foster

Age: 27

Born: Bellflower, Calif., currently living in Nine Mile Falls.

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Eastern Washington University, 2005.

Day job: Full-time student and “mom.”

Describe your art: Foster works with beeswax and other organic materials to create formal art objects that range from sculptural to bas relief paintings.

Influences: “The biggest influences on my work are nature and the art world,” Foster says.

Talk a little about your process: “It’s intuitive,” she says. “I generally start out with a general idea of what I am going to make, and then I let the materials dictate to me the exact form they will take.”

What is your intent with your art? “I create objects in an attempt to better understand the role of art in the contemporary world and in my own life,” Foster says.

“The objects represent an intersection of ideas surrounding both high art and the natural world,” she says. “Juxtaposing these two areas of thought has led me to produce objects that, while visually very formal, are almost exclusively of natural materials. The materials possess an intrinsic beauty that imbues the objects with a feeling of organic energy. It is my intention that the experienced energy will awaken in the viewer a state of existence that is in connection with all life.”

Where your work is displayed locally: “Inland Northwest Women’s Caucus of Art,” September 2005 at the Cottage Gallery, 1520 Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene.

E-mail: fosterjillian@ hotmail.com