Gray Drift, No. 8
1975
20th Century
36 x 36 in.
Power Boothe,
b. 1945
Object Type:
Painting
Medium and Support:
acrylic and pencil on canvas
Credit Line:
Florence Griswold Museum; Gift of Charles T. Clark
Accession Number:
2015.17.2
A former Dean of the Hartford Art School, Power Boothe has hovered between the grids and structure associated with minimalism and an improvisational, intuitive method that leaves traces of handcraft behind. Gray Drift embodies that tension, with the lines across the background softened by the translucent, irregular flow of black paint. Applied in nine layers that together create a sense of spatial volume, each wash stops just short of the corners to reveal the process of building the color’s depth. Themes of time and sequence run throughout Boothe’s work, as does the practice of transforming an intricate process into the appearance of something simple and effortless. He aims to create something that is both full of movement, unpredictable, and yet still.