hello… I must be going
“Hello, I Must Be Going: A Retrospective” is an immersive art show that delves into the complexities of living in an era defined by information overload and misinformation. The exhibition brings together a collection of works that explore the emotional toll of navigating a world saturated with conflicting narratives, relentless headlines, and the constant bombardment of digital noise.
Michael’s distinct visual language fuses the personal with the cryptic: fragmented notes, obscured messages, and mysterious, abstracted forms pulse beneath kinetic surfaces that seem to breathe with unease. His paintings embody the friction between the digital and the emotional, offering a map of the subconscious shaped by technology’s grip and the fallibility of memory.
Through a mix of comic-like imagery, futuristic architecture, and ambient abstraction, the work in “Hello, I Must Be Going: A Retrospective” becomes both elegy and compass—honoring the past while pointing, however uncertainly, toward what might come next.
Videos
Watch the BFAC podcast (45 min)
Watch the show reel
“I am excited to have such important content, thought, and conversation around this topic. Our world seems so marred and entangled with technology, and the question of fact that to take a moment and visually see these concepts come to life through art in this retrospective is an important guide which can help us reflect on these concepts in our own life.”
— Dominic Cattero, BFAC Director
View Paintings From the Show
now showing at the batavia fine art centre
In an age of digital noise and blurred truths, artist Michael Foster invites us to pause and reflect. Hello…I Must Be Going: A Retrospective, now on view at the Batavia Fine Arts Centre Gallery, is a bold and immersive collection exploring memory, anxiety, and the influence of technology on how we interpret the world around us.
Spanning nearly 25 years of work, the retrospective showcases Foster’s signature visual language—fragmented notes, encrypted ciphers, and abstracted forms that seem to pulse with unease. His art captures the emotional toll of navigating an era shaped by information overload, misinformation, and emotional fragmentation.
The Art Portfolio
Michael’s work continues the visual analogy of civilization coping with Moore’s Law through the lens of the subconscious. Distorted handwritten notes and encrypted keyword ciphers are interwoven throughout mysterious structures and various abstractions, including comic illustrations and other non-specific futuristic forms.
The result is a data landscape of today’s anxious subconscious mind, presenting how we remember life events and interpret the kinetic surfaces and essences of the environment and emotions that we are sometimes reluctantly embedded within. And they look great on your wall.
