Water is the genesis for Ross Booker’s latest body of work which utilises digital images, painting, drawing and video. Booker is compelled to contemplate the hydrosphere, focusing on the ephemeral and mercurial qualities of water embodied in our river systems, estuaries, and oceans. As Booker enthuses, “I want to transport water from the background noise of our daily existence and uphold it as something precious and extraordinary”. Waterways and the sea have become his focus. “I’m fascinated by the mutable nature of water, the interplay of light on its surface, the topographical nature of wave forms, and the many nuanced impressions that are left in its wake on my memory”. The undulating surface of water becomes the ultimate symbol for the ungraspable nature of existence. It is both phenomenological and eternal – never still, always evolving through constant change. Booker remains preoccupied by notions of change evident in the physical world, and the equilibrium that underpins its stability and its impermanence, giving rise to the transitory nature of our own existence.
