Exhibition Highlights Half a Century of Artistic Evolution
Masters Gallery in Calgary is showcasing Land and Figure: Paintings by Dulcie Foo Fat, a comprehensive retrospective spanning the artist's 50-year career, on display until July 4. The exhibition features more than 50 works, from early pieces to recent landscapes, and coincides with the launch of her new book, Dulcie Foo Fat: Paintings.
Among the recent works is Durrand Glacier (2025), an oil on canvas inspired by a helicopter trip to a remote summit north of Revelstoke, British Columbia. Foo Fat, now 80, has been an avid hiker for four decades and often ventures into backcountry to capture source material. She explains, “I take many, many photographs. Hopefully there will just be one or two or three a year that will give me that source material.”
A Diverse Body of Work
The retrospective includes a variety of subjects and styles. A 1986 oil on canvas, Small Kananaskis Landscape #2, depicts a dense patch of Banff flora with exquisite detail. Another highlight is View from Pigeon Mountain (2016), a large-scale photorealist oil on canvas. The exhibition also features intimate portraits of her granddaughters and an in-progress painting of Calgary's skyline from Tom Campbell Park.
Foo Fat draws inspiration from early Renaissance depictions of nature and the abstractions of Jackson Pollock, resulting in vibrant use of light and colour. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Glenbow and Whyte museums, the University of Calgary, and the McMichael Canadian Collection.
Personal Connections and Early Works
The earliest piece in the show, Small Kananaskis Landscape #2, was originally commissioned for her closest friend's 40th birthday. Foo Fat notes, “She is sadly deceased, but her daughter took the painting and I think appreciates the painting. So I was happy to include it.”
Born in London, England, Foo Fat earned a Bachelor of Arts in painting from Reading University in 1969. She moved to Calgary in 1970 with her husband, France Foo Fat, and completed a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Calgary in 1974.
New Book Chronicles Artistic Journey
The accompanying book, Paintings, reaches further back into her career, opening with a 1966 oil on masonite self-portrait. It also includes Dinner (1977), an oil on canvas depicting a crowded multi-generational dining room, part of a series exploring her experience marrying into a Chinese family.
Foo Fat acknowledges that her days of helicopter access to glaciers may be behind her, but she continues to hike and seek out vistas that inspire her yearly output of detailed oil paintings. “If you hike regularly, you find the people who do these backcountry trips for three or four nights,” she says.
