CityView Magazine

LocalArtist The many faces of By Jason Brady Shane Booth I n the past two years, life has tested Shane Booth. His grand- mother died, cancer attacked his father, a tumor burrowed into a friend’s brain, and HIV invaded yet another. These are the things which inspire Booth’s photographic works. Booth is a professor of visual arts at Fayetteville State University where he teaches art history and photography to impressionable and willing minds. Al- though the 30-year-old enjoys the life of a popular professor, Booth has special plans for his photography, plans molded by the suffering of family and friends. Booth creates what one local art critic called “raw and gritty” photographs that illuminate the ravages of disease. His work is profound and thought- provoking, and he doubts some of them will ever be shown in what he considers to be a conservative community. How- ever, the result he achieves through the medium of photography is much more important to him than any of the techni- cal aspects of photography itself. Booth uses photography as a tool to create art designed to raise the consciousness about issues that are important to him. Booth wants to be a well-known pho- tographer, enough so that he can raise money, not for personal gain but to benefit and heighten awareness. Booth’s current series of self-portraiture focuses on HIV, a disease that affects millions worldwide. One of his works, “Dunce Hat,” illus- trates the stupidity of acquiring a dis- ease that is easily preventable. Another, “Cover Face,” depicts what many view- ers may consider a symbolic crucifixion. A red shroud covers the face and arms. Booth often uses red in his otherwise austere and gray-tone settings to sym- bolize that HIV is a blood disease. “I want to raise money, to raise aware- ness. Your next-door neighbor may have it (HIV) and you would never know,” he said. Booth, whose works have been Opposite | When he’s not teaching photography at Fayetteville State University, Shane Booth can be found practicing his art. Top | Abandoned buildings, farm fields – they’re all his landscape. Booth calls this self-portrait “Dr. Buzzard.” Above | Booth works with his students at FSU. CityViewNC.com | 23

• Cover