OüTTA PAWWWëR
Ryan Foerster
June 6 - July 11 2025
Outttaw powwwwr is my first solo show in Portland, Maine. I don’t know if I’ve ever been there. I went camping in Maine as a kid and loved it. I’m showing some photos and some sculpture-objects here. When I take the photo I can frame it how I want to see it, the thing I want to take a picture of, how to crop it and print it. There are lots of options to make the image I want. Most of it depends on how I see something first or think about a thing and then if I want to remember it I take the photo how I think looks best. It gives me the power to document and create something and bring it into an object from. I view it with my eyes and in my head. It’s a great feeling. It’s some type of power.
When my phone is out of power and I lose Google maps I might be lost, but it’s a different type of power to wander, to go with you intuition, make this turn, etc. Google has a lot of power. The government might force it to break up. Maybe that’s a good thing. Certain things Google does gives me power, like the maps and mail mostly. That’s a lot of responsibility to have that type of power.
My neighbor Yuri had the knowledge, power, whatever you want to call it, to do electrical work. He was a nice enough guy to show me some basic stuff so that we installed lights on my house. That’s a nice use of power, him sharing his knowledge with me and now I have lights outside, which is nice to not always be in the dark out there, although I do have some ambient light from the streets which is free-ish light. Well I guess my taxes go towards that. I used to think, just let my garden grow how it wants to, let it do its thing. Mugwarts and Japanese knot weed usually take over. Spotted lanterns flys log crazy. I have the ability to pull certain things out I don’t like and let others get more space, light, soil water, etc. It feels good to garden. I like working with my hands and it gives me some sense of being in control of that space. Which can feel good. But it can also be good to be out of power, cause really, what can we control?
If I really try to hold on and control a situation it just blows up. I used that Tom Petty song Free Falling in a video I made. I love it. Maybe it’s better to free fall. Maybe being out of power is as necessary as having power. Things change.
That long black strip of photographic paper that was expired, done, whatever. I put it underneath pots of plants in my yard and let time, rain, and pressure to make their
mark. I’m setting up the situation but I’m not controlling it. I can say when it’s done and remove it all, bring it inside. Having power and trying to control things is a slippery slope.
I would control my kids to a degree if I had them, but I’m sure I would also get criticized for letting them do their thing. I would stop them from running into traffic.
The power rangers was a tv show I watched at the very beginning. They were all different colors—green, blue, red, yellow. They fought against bad things. I became a teenager sometime during this show and lost interest. Growing into something else is an amazing form of power. Feeling the power in your own life. What was the saying? The people have the power. They should but there should also be some form of boundaries with power. Amazon is another big company that has a lot of power. Maybe that’s bad, but shit, getting something I need delivered to my house the next day to make something, do something can make me feel powerful.
Sometimes I look at the packaging from things I bought with amazement. I used some of that packaging in a darkroom, laid it on top of light sensitive paper and exposed it. That other grey-ish gold strip is made this way. It gave me a new way to look. I like the irony and beauty of the “power plant” pieces I’ve made. They feel to me like they’re full of my energy and others as I make them in my yard and then it’s done.
There are plants I grew or ones that appeared until I cut them down off the fence. Nature is very powerful, a silent ever present wherever we go on this planet. It’s
amazing and scary at the same time. It’s fun to interact with nature and we use the resources here a lot to give us power. Some might be destroying the planet and giving individuals short term power. I was thinking and moving these past bit about being in power of my making and view as an artist and what that really is.
I’ve used nature before in my work, or used things from nature as collaborators. Sometimes I’ll think if I was meant to do that. but this came in the way it was meant to be, and I should go with it. I can still have ideas of where I’d like to go but there is this ever-present sense of power in living things and still trying to go about my life and do what I want and make things. So it’s kinda like having power and not at the same time. And coming to peace with being out of power. And the title of course is some crazy spelling but I think of that as even some form of power language and communication. I like art of virtual things. You sort of go in viewing it and come up with whatever. So it’s my form of power to create with the help of my surroundings while also giving into them.
I hope that helps make some sense of where my head was at when it put this show together. Thank you.
RYAN FOERSTER
GT is thrilled to share our inaugural show with Canadian born, NYC based artist Ryan Foerster. Foerster's work spans photography, video, sculpture and zines (Ratstar Press). Process focused, Foerster often sources material from found objects, reclaimed material and natural traces. In OüTTA PAWWWëR, he gives us a glimpse into both his process and daily surroundings. The work is reflective, curious and deeply intuitive. The 'Power Plant' sculptures are comprised from found electrical boxes and discarded plant matter from his garden in Brighton Beach. His experimental images vary heavily in size and stature but all have a familiar sense of mark making. Using many layers and techniques, Forester's pictures echo what is within his control and what is left for the universe to decide. - Gallery Takeout