Jane Booth: The Pond in the Field

JANE BOOTH

THE POND IN THE FIELD

April 2 - May 22, 2021

SHERRY LEEDY CONTEMPORARY ART 2004 Baltimore Ave. Kansas City, MO 64108 816.221.2626 | sherryleedy.com

Catalog design, Allison King - Photo credit, E.G. Schempf - Cover image, Seventh Voyage

Installation images by E.G. Schempf

I start each morning in the studio, sitting on a sofa looking out big glass doors to the southeast, overlooking a field of mixed grasses with a small spring fed pond in the center. The pond is a constant, but different every day. Sometimes the wind blows across, rippling the water. When it’s still, the water is reflective. It freezes, sparkles in the sun and thaws. Eagles fly over nearly every winter day. In March a cacophony of migrating blackbirds come in droves, migrating, looking for food, landing on the cattails that surround the pond. Ducks land in droves in the evenings. Many deer come across nearly always west to east, a hawk family hunts every day. The field greens up, frogs start singing, an occasional coyote passes by. In late summer the prairie grasses rise and begin to turn, sunflowers bloom, winds shift, migrations begin again.

In this way, all of my work emerges from the pond in the field.

-Jane Booth, 2021

At the beginning of 2020, Jane Booth opened Instinct, a stunning exhibition of mostly large-scale paintings at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, MO. Independent curator and past Director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO, Barbara O’Brien wrote an insightful and thoughtful essay on the show, Falling-away Spaces. Then the pandemic shut everything down. Booth’s show remained up in the museum throughout the year in a stunning, silent, almost sacred, space and publication plans for the essay evaporated.

The Pond in the Field showcases stunning paintings that were debuted in the Daum exhibition supported by new work, done during this most strange of all years, inspired and sustained by Booth’s muse - the land, sky and water that surround her. In addition, in a cooperative collaboration made possible by the artist, Barbara O’Brien and designer, Claudia Marchand, the long awaited catalog has been published and will be available at the gallery.

Jane Booth’s paintings are in public collections throughout the country including: Kansas UniversityHospital, Kansas City, MO; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cisco Systems, H& R Block World Headquartersand Hilton Hotels as well as the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO.

Apothecary, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 70.75” x 78”

Installation images by E.G. Schempf

Palimpsest - Pollen, diptych, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 53” x 73”

Palimpsest - Oasis, diptych, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 68” x 72”

Installation images by E.G. Schempf

Swan Series - Kabir, 2018, acrylic, water soluble pastel, pencil on canvas, 52” x 73”

Cat Dreams, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 54”

Finding Sand Dollars Under Clouds, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 78” x 88”

Fox Walk, diptych, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 58” x 94”

Seventh Voyage, 2018, acrylic, water soluble pastel on canvas, 85.5” x 67”

Installation images by E.G. Schempf

Sunday Afternoon, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 56” x 54”

Orientation, 2018, acrylic, house paint, pencil, water soluble pastel on canvas, 56” x 46”

Botan Triptych, 2018, acrylic, water soluble pastel on canvas, 48” x 86”

Installation images by E.G. Schempf

Breezy III, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 26” x 40”

Breezy II, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 26” x 40”

Philomene’s Courtyard, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 53” x 73”

Joplin, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 54” x 42”

Rhythm and Form - Assimilate, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 36.75” x 25.5”

Rhythm and Form - Jun, 2020, sumi ink, paint stick, acrylic on paper, 18” x 23.5”

Rhythm and Form - Theory, 2020, sumi ink, paint stick, acrylic on paper, 18” x 23.5”

Rhythm and Form - Oehlen, 2020, sumi ink, paint stick, acrylic on paper, 18” x 23.5”