Chris Booth is a self-taught artist from South London, now living in Rye, East Sussex, in the UK. He works in a wide range of media exploring themes such as time and nature, disorder and disintegration, biodiversity and rewilding.
Drawing, in particular stippled ink-on-paper artworks with hints of the eerie and uncanny, form the core of his practice. These works often take several months to complete. Painting allows him to bookend each drawing project with looser and more expressionist approaches to figurative art.
Walking and foraging form a reciprocal part of his practice. In particular, he re-walks local routes in all seasons in order to explore how humans project their emotional states upon, and draw meaning from, the landscape. He tries to engage with walking as more than a mode of transport but as a psychological map of the year - one that is changing dramatically as climate change continues to accelerate and redraw the atlas physically and mentally.
The same walks provide endless opportunities to observe the slump of human interventions back into earth, and to remember the fallacy of an imagined separation of people from ecology.
Chris has exhibited with the Rye Society of Artists since 2018 and was invited to join the Society in 2022. He became a member of SoCo Artists in 2024. His work has featured in exhibitions at the Royal West of England Academy and Hastings Museum and Art Gallery. ‘Let Go’ was published in the Spring 2020 issue of Dark Mountain.
2024
Shows:
October 12th - 27th 2024, Sussex Contemporary 2024, The Marine Workshops, Newhaven
August 2nd - 26th 2024, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre
March 23rd - May 5th 2024, Rye Society of Artists Spring Exhibition, Rye Art Gallery
April 16th - 28th 2024, SoCo Open IV, Hastings Art Forum
New memberships / roles:
Member of SoCo Artists
2023
Shows:
August 5th - 28th 2023, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre
New memberships / roles:
Committee Member of the Rye Society of Artists
2022
Shows:
August 6th - 28th 2022, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre
March 19th - April 24th 2022, Rye Society of Artists Spring Exhibition, Rye Art Gallery
April 4th - May 1st 2022, Ethel Loves Me Artist of the Month
New memberships / roles:
April, Elected member of the Rye Society of Artists
2021
Shows:
August 7th - 29th 2021, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre
April 12th - 9th May 2021, ‘RWA Open 2020’ at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol UK
March, Contributor to the second ‘Hastings Museum Digital Quilt’, Hastings UK
2020
Shows:
Nov 21 - March 7 2021, ‘RWA Open 2020’ at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol UK
Aug 27 - Jan 3 2021, ‘Hastings Open 2020’ at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, Hastings UK
May, Contributor to the ‘Hastings Museum Digital Quilt’, Hastings UK
Jan 28 - Feb 8, ‘Along the Vale’, Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne UK
Publications:
Dark Mountain 17, Spring 2020, featuring ‘Let go’
2019
Shows:
Nov 28 - Jan 2020, ‘All the wild places’, The Devil in Rye, Rye UK
Aug 3 - Aug 25, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre
2018
Shows:
Aug 4 - Aug 26, Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition, Rye Community Centre