Welcome to Berrisford Boothe

Art is always a decision away. Art is a verb. Everything of value to me about the process of making art ends with the letters (‘ing’). I immerse myself in arranging, pasting, looking, splashing, marking, touching, trusting, connecting, referencing and most important – “not-knowing.” Art is the language between thought, matter and form. Art is evidence of thinking without the use of language; an iterative state of mind. When I make art, I am perpetually in a state of heightened awareness. I welcome the vulnerability to all that exists beyond what I know and the challenge of reconfiguring what I know into what I cannot recognize. Patience with process is how I subject myself to the notion that anything – any moment, any configuration of matter and material is ripe as the source for a new visual aesthetic. When anyone becomes patient enough to allow sequences of staggered decisions and actions to align in thought or deed - as form – that residue is art.

Art is experience. For me, that experience has its roots in the practice of ritual. Ritual is series of actions repeated over time toward an end. Ritual is a pattern of movements with the intention of transforming the spirit. Rituals in themselves do not create meaning. My art-making rituals are the catalysts, the motions that will lead to meaning when the evidence of my activity becomes the final form. The careful but intuitive placing and improvised structuring of hundreds of bits of paper on panels allows my mind to breathe. I begin to see patterns of ‘recreational geometry’ emerge from my allegiance to process. By surrendering all hope of knowing exactly where this will take me, I become part of the flow of doing. Energy becomes aesthetic.

To some, my work might appear formalized and intellectually iconic – maybe even rigid - but they are far from that. Each mark, each piece of paper, the underlying geometry, and the final veils of color along with the illusions of solids or voids is, in the end, evidence of activity. My decisions, my alchemist rituals of unplanned actions and spontaneous invocations are my art whether drawings, prints, paintings pr photography. Art is the manifestation of spirit - as human - made visible.