Self-Portraits | Natasha Boone

Biography

Natasha Boone is a writer, artist and illustrator based out of Winnipeg, MB, Treaty 1 Territory. Using oils, acrylics and found mixed media, her paintings highlight the difficulty of living with ill health, and the resulting dis/association of her body to herself. Likewise, having been inspired by Yayoi Kusama and her use of mirrors in emphasizing body distortion, Natasha likewise employs image deconstructualization to convey the frustration of living in a defunct body. She is published in The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine, 10th Edition, and is also a feature writer for The Mighty. She has exhibited in alternative and artist-run centers throughout the city of Winnipeg and is the recipient of a Manitoba Arts Grant for her graphic novel, ‘How I Contracted Hep C and Other Bedtime Stories.’

Artist Statement

Natasha Boone’s work explores the emotions behind being a “lifer” (chronically ill able/disabled person) and the subsequent “othering” that occurs due to having such a diagnosis. Her paintings are large and expressive.

Natasha is a three-time kidney transplant patient, with a cumulative of twelve years on dialysis. Her health dis/ability has brought challenge in life, but likewise has uniquely permitted her an opportunity to live ‘outside normative societal expectations’. In that sense then, she is free to be ‘other’, to use thick brushwork to “speak loudly” in her art.

During this time of COVID-19, the potential of contracting an illness became a threat to everyone, with even the healthy having to stop and acknowledge a sense of body-fragility. This idea of being “out of control” however, is a familiar one to any individual already living with a life-impacting illness. Having been diagnosed with chronic renal failure since before she could hold a pencil, Natasha has spent a lifetime of drawing – Her work wrestles with health and identity, and of how to live well and fully despite – or because of – such body-uncertainty. This tension is crucial to her work and especially important in this time in our history.

Natasha paints sizable, bold pieces on hand-stretched canvas. Drawing inspiration from the modernist artist Georgia O’Keeffe, she hopes that: if I paint large enough, (surely) someone ought to listen.

If you have any questions, please contact Jenel Shaw at info@aanm.ca or 204-336-2366.

Descriptive Text

This image advertises Natasha Boone’s show of oil paintings. Along the right side, against a strip of acid yellow, is the artist’s name in red capitalized font. The rest of the poster displays a close-up detail of her painting: free, messy brushstrokes combine black, grey, and white, with a hint of yellow. Across the middle in acid yellow and red is the show title: SELF-PORTRAITS. A square of light grey provides a background for the show information in plain black font, reading “OPENS APRIL 1 2022 aanm.ca/online-exhibitions AND 102-329 Cumberland Ave. WPG.” The image includes logos for Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba and Canada Council For The Arts.