CHAKAIA BOOKERChakaia Booker was born in 1953, New Jersey and is an artist who works in sculpture, performance art, photography, and textile work. Growing up on a farm in the South, she was taught hot to sew, and would later blur the lines between fashion and art through wearing sculptural pieces to match with whatever work she's creating. Booker sees herself as a sculpture first, and has woven in materials such as broken plates, dish racks and other household items, incorporating the weaving and stitching she learned as a child.
It's so hard to be green (2000)
Slavery, Environmentalism,
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Booker is most known for her sculptural work using recycled tires. During the 80s in East Village, she noticed how the streets were filled with graffiti, dirty and crime and harvested the tires and pooled rubber from car fires. By reusing these discarded materials, her work speaks to environmentalism and globalization through turning these materials into complex assemblages.
She believes that tires represent mobility and growth, and the treads within tires have their own pattern, similar to a language. The work on the left, It's so hard to be green (2000) was an exploration of how she uses her tire sculptures as a her version of painting, the rectangular form working as a canvas as the composition goes from controlled to expressive with tire rings spilling out of the form. Raw Attraction (2001)
In this piece, Deja Vu, the title refers to the idea of experiencing something twice again. This sculpture is created out of recycled tires and the overall form of this installation is reminiscent of what the original tire shape was. The piece can be viewed through different angles as it curves and interlaces upon itself, the circular forms repeating at multiple angles.
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