Paul Booth, Casino, 2021, Hand Embellished; Signed, and Numbered Limited Edition Print

Akron-born, New York-based artist Paul Booth populates his works with bodies and figures that are pushed to the edges of compressed pictorial frames. Composed with materials such as colored pencil, ink, gouache, watercolor and crayon, these images stem from an array of inspirational sources that include self-portraiture, literary and mythical references, religious iconography, and Sisyphean feats. Booth’s drawings were recently featured by SITUATIONS, as part of NADA Miami 2020.

Casino depicts four players seated around the table for a card game; their expressive eyes, however, appear to be fixated on external preoccupations. The work points towards the artist’s belief that the human brain’s capacity for problems is fixed and finite. To him, those with much on their mind shrink and squeeze in a multitude of concerns, while those with relatively few struggles aggrandize their troubles to occupy mental space. Within Booth’s practice, the image surface becomes a metaphor for individuals’ inner worlds, with subjects threatening—but never quite managing—to burst free from its confines. Booth will hand-embellish each print in this limited edition, making them all full color and with varying details.

Of this limited edition, he notes, “I am thrilled that the sale of my work through ART FOR CHANGE will help fund art and performance nonprofit organizations. It is essential to support places where creativity can flourish, and where the community can visit, participate, and be enriched by new and challenging ideas.”

This limited edition is part of ART FOR CHANGE’s Spring 2021 virtual benefit exhibition, Love to New York City, which supports artists and five New York City arts organizations––The Kitchen, Performance Space, Printed Matter, Abrons Art Center, and NADA’s new nonprofit. Of the total net proceeds of prints sold from this series, 50% will directly benefit the participating artists, and 20% will benefit the organizations.