VIEWING ROOM

Annka Kultys Gallery is pleased to present a special online exhibition in support of Ukraine (25% of the gallery sales proceeds will be donated to Siobhan’s Trust). Sixteen new oil paintings by Kim Booker will be presented in the gallery’s metaverse (a simulated digital gallery that uses a mix of augmented reality and virtual reality, in which social interactions mimic the real world) on Spatial, a platform accessible from the visitor’s desktop or smartphone. ‘June is the Saddest Month’, the title of Booker’s most recent series of paintings, juxtaposes human relationships and loneliness, drawing from the artist’s own experiences.

Kim Booker’s practice is rooted in the tradition of painting and the history of modern art. Her practice takes influences from German Expressionism, idiosyncratic British painting such as the work of Roy Oxlade, and American abstract expressionism, yet presents a unique point of view and a painterly language of gestural abstraction and figuration grounded in the practice of drawing. Her paintings are semi-autobiographical, often featuring female figures in poses suggestive of an emotional state. Her process and mark making are gestural and intuitive. The physicality of the act of painting is important; working on large scale canvases, Booker’s paintings are an extension of her body and an evolution of her emotions.

“My process is gestural and instinctive; paintings are constructed through repeated negotiations between the drawn image and its erasure. The works go through multiple iterations over many weeks or months, continually informed and shaped by my experiences and feelings at the time of making.”

“My paintings are large. The physicality of the act of painting is important to me. I work with my body, with the brush marks reflecting the reach of my arm. I add colour, or make a drawing on the canvas, but everything is liable to be scrubbed away in a visceral, felt process.”

“Painting is about possibility. As I work things come and go again, but always leaving traces. There is always an integration of abstract colour and the drawn image, with neither dominating. The journey and the experience of painting is as important as the end result. The evolution of my paintings is revealed to the viewer through layered imagery and the resulting heavily worked surfaces.”