Tidemark: Coastal Explorations by Sabra Booth

K Space Contemporary is pleased to present Tidemark: Coastal Explorations by Sabra Booth. The public is invited to attend the opening reception during ArtWalk on Friday, Sept. 1 from 5:30 to 9 pm. The artist will present a gallery talk at 7:00 pm.

Tidemark is a comprehensive body of Sabra Booth’s work spanning over two decades, reflecting on North America’s coasts. Like a 19th century naturalist, Booth often sketches and paint flora and fauna on site. She uses these drawings as touchstones for her studio work. Design considerations are evident through the implementation of graphic line, negative space, actual texture, and limited color. Booth typically creates an interplay between the gestural fluidity of water media and the structural line work of drawing or printmaking processes. Since her graduate thesis show, she has explored the play of light and shadow, incorporating translucent cut-paper.

Beauty and at times, humor have been tactics for conveying her thoughts. Underlying these concerns are reflections on personal identity. In 2006, South Texas, experienced burgeoning male butterfly populations. The MDF butterflies from her satirical installation Mariposa Machismoare exhibited. In related work, Limpet Liaisons, gender fluid paper-maché mollusks are perched on rocky pedestals. With the 2009 Coral Cadence, viewers can walk through a dark space glowing with mushroom coral prints which gradually fade and diminish.

The materials she works with are often intrinsic to the content of the project. For instance, in the 2013 artist’s book, Slick, Booth printed on rubber gaskets used in oil pipes. In the 2023 project, The Gowanus Canal, she focused on her impressions of this infamous Brooklyn waterway. Framing work and displaying animations with relevant found objects is another tactic employed. Personally, she grew up on the beaches of south Florida and Texas. Ecological concerns are a principle aspect to her studio practice. Overall, a cast of glowing coral, amorous butterflies, and mutant crustaceans populate her art. These characters, like herself, are skipping or stumbling through a dystopic world.

Sabra Booth presently resides in San Antonio, Texas. Early experiences on the beaches of south Florida and her present exploration of the Texas landscape affect her artistic vision. Booth’s studiopractice offers interpretative observations of nature, while addressing complex ecological issues. She is a free-lance artist and educator. Before attending graduate school, she was an assistant to Tamarind trained master printers at the Houston Fine Art Press. She is an MFA graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Later, she attained national recognition as a science exhibits designer for the Ginzbarg Nature Discovery Center in Bellaire, Texas. In the earIy 2000’s, Booth lived in New York for five years, teaching in the public schools and for several non-profit organizations, such as the Lower East Side Printshop. Recent study abroad travels in Japan and a Fulbright Mid-Career Professional Grant to Finland in 2007, both have had agreat impact on her work. In 2023, she exhibited in On the Waterfront, A View from the Coast (Line), a Central Booking and New York Historical Society project. She has been awarded an Individual Artist Grant 2024 by the Department of Arts & Culture, City of San Antonio for her upcoming project, Herbal Traces. In 2022, the same grant funded her project, Snow Shadows: Winter Storm Uri displayed at Art Pace. Other recent awards include Best Narrative Film, for Slick, 8th Annual Water, Texas Film Festival, Austin, Texas, 2022.