Artist Statement: Sabra Booth
Artist Statement
"…Black Winter is a long woodcut on linen around the walls raising in front of our eyes memories of old black and white printed fairytale books…Her art gives us a strong feeling of tales of wolves and her deep understanding of the darkness and mysterious nature of the Finnish forests…” Leena Passi, Director of the Nelimarkka Museo, Alajärvi, Finland.
Natural forms have always been a principle source of inspiration for my work. Beneath the literal, are metaphors often harkening back to the body. A leaf curls into an orifice or abstract forms become cellular. Some works question biological verses socially constructed concepts, such as gender. Like the 19th century naturalists, I often sketch and paint flora and fauna on site. My way of mark making is precise even obsessive. I balance tight lines with gestural marks that are unexpected and more subconscious. Forms are magnified and cropped until they become otherworldly. One body of work glows in the dark or fluoresces under a black light. Capturing a sense of wonder, in the unexpected, permeates my ideas. Collages from random sources often create a rich substrate for my drawings and prints. Using text, humor can be a means to convey my message. Sometimes, current events, such as an unusual explosion of male butterfly populations in South Texas, influence my work. I also create images derived from folk tales, like the Finnish stories about the vironsusi or werewolf. A common link in these myriad ideas is a curiosity about evolutionary deviations, which society often deems as aberrations. The realms of pseudoscience, like cryptozoology, can be a means towards explaining or coping with these unique even beautiful deviations. Also, present day technology is creating unintended variations on species in unsettling ways. I am presently working on a stop motion animation called Slick about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which addresses these concerns. In the future, I plan to continue the discourse in my work concerning the intersections of nature, myth, and identity.
