The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, in association with area teens through CAM’s Teen Museum Studies program, presents Meredith Foster: Fire & Fat—three large scale prints and paintings by locally based artist Meredith Foster. The exhibition is on view in the upstairs Education Gallery. Held each summer, Teen Museum Studies offers a select group of high school students the opportunity to learn from CAM staff members in all departments and culminates in the teens organizing an exhibition from start to finish.

Meredith Foster creates evocative large-scale images that prompt us to reflect on our perception of nature through the re-contextualization of diverse natural elements such as fire, ash, and fat. Inspired by environmental and social concerns, Foster’s diverse visual language comes together in three works viewed in the intimate setting of the Education Gallery. Sprawling gold leaf paint is delicately utilized to reflect gold’s complicated history as a resource. Large-scale digital prints contrast between the life-generating elements of light and sky and the harmful properties of fire and ash. Suggestive rather than accusatory, Fire & Fat prompts us to consider our sometimes destructive presence in relation to nature.

Meredith Foster: Fire & Fat is organized for the Contemporary Art Museum by Naysa Adams, Anna Brackett, Lilliana Bremerkamp, Avian Duke, Sarah Ferrara, Lilly Hayward, Oliver Kanak, Michael Lloyd, Kate Malinak, Taylor McCullar, Emily McCullough, Randice Reed, and Gordon Stuvland.

Follow along with the students in TMS’s progress at their blog.