ABOUT A PLACE
Anna Booth's Paintings of El Zaguán
OPENING AUGUST 3, 2018, 5-7PM
Historic Santa Fe Foundation (HSFF) will host About a Place during the month of August 2018 in the sala of El Zaguán, 545 Canyon Road, Suite 2, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition opens on Friday, August 3 from 5-7pm and continues through August 31, 2018.
© Anna Booth
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
About a Place, is a new body of work inspired directly by El Zaguán and my residency here. The history, architecture, color, light, texture, intentional and accidental details, have all influenced and inspired my recent work. The layers of history are palpable here, from the original inhabitants to the artists who have lived and created more recently. This richness is visible everywhere your gaze lands, from the thickness of the walls to the wear upon thresholds.
I intend for the work to relay a calm and quiet that can be felt when one slows down to notice the feeling of a place. When we pause to consider those who have come before, it allows that resonance to influence and enrich our present. I’ve also taken pleasure in the life outside my studio window and door, which opens directly onto Canyon Road. I sometimes engage with passing tourists and locals, and other times I happen to overhear pieces of conversations. As I jot down these fragments, I imagine what the larger context might have been, and what the passersby might be like—not dissimilar to catching the small visual clues that subtly evoke the people and scenarios of the past. These echoes and the possibilities they imply conjure up the deep sense of connection and peace that has become the basis of my current work.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Anna Booth’s painting practice is deeply rooted in the joining of past and present through lines and layers of paint. She began painting as a small child at a Waldorf school in New York, which gave her the chance to dive into color and to express the form and beauty of the natural world. Her family and teachers throughout her childhood are all early influences on her work, which also has its roots in the history of her family and the places she has lived. Her inspirations span old family documents that date back as early as 1806 to the subtle signs of past inhabitants in the places she lives, as well as the buildings and landscapes they called home. Her use of color and form evoke the connection between the act of creation and the present moment, linked visually through time—whether it be a line of calligraphy that suggests the hand that made it, or the splatters of paint on her studio floor that recall prior artists and their myriad creations there.
In 2010, Anna moved from Brooklyn, NY to Northern New Mexico, where the landscape, quality of light, and rich history inspire her work. She graduated with an Associate's Degree in Fine Arts from Munson Williams Proctor Institute, and holds a BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY. Anna has handled and helped to produce artworks from Phillips Auction House in NYC to Landfall Press in Santa Fe. She is pleased to currently be an artist in residence at El Zaguán, the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. She produced a solo exhibition for the El Zaguán Gallery in December of 2017 that showcased her calligraphic works, and will be exhibiting another in August of 2018, which will display current works that were formed and inspired during her residency.