Venture into the bygone era and embrace the spirit of the Wild West with the skillful Jeremy Booth. ‘High Country’ connects the viewer to a timeless, vibrant, era of Americana that Booth seeks to not only keep alive but help reach new frontiers through his celebrated artworks.
Channel your inner cowboy (or cowgirl) as we ride deeper into the ‘High Country’ with Jeremy Booth in this western-inspired Behind the Art!
‘THE ORIGIN’
Jeremey Booth’s journey into art didn’t begin with the rich Western backdrop that so many are familiar with but bears many parallels to this era of free-spirited individuals. Like many of the digital frontiersmen of his time, Booth’s digital art exploration began with an illegal copy of Photoshop and a desire to learn. Soon after everything changed Booth recalls, “Once I got a hold of Adobe Illustrator everything changed for me. I immediately fell in love with vector illustration and became solely focused on that ever since.” Booth’s passion and drive for vector illustration led him to a successful commercial art career that spans over 10+ years with clients to the likes of Apple, Warby Parker, Slack, and more.
For many years Booth ran the gamut of honing his skills, freelance client work, building his portfolio, and eventually representation by agencies in France, North America, & the UK. In January 2021, Booth transitioned away from the freelance world to pursue an opportunity as part of Coinbase’s product design team which he credits for being a major part of his venture into releasing his artwork as NFTs. Booth fondly remembers, “I was also working at Coinbase at the time, so I was constantly surrounded by some really forward-thinking people who encouraged me to pursue NFT art. My curiosity finally led me to minting my first piece, and the rest was history.”
Booth accredits some of the approaches he takes with his own artworks to the invaluable skills learned through being a freelance illustrator. He recalls, “Most of my career I’ve had a specific style but my subject matter always shifted depending on the needs of the client. When I made the decision to pursue fine art full time, I also wanted to dive into a specific subject matter.” Booth experimented with several subject matters and eventually landed upon his first Western-themed collection titled ‘Dirt’ and that's when everything changed! “Maybe I was inspired by all the cowboy movies I watched as a kid,” he remembers, “I figured it would just be a short series and I’d move on. My goal was to try a few subjects and see which one stuck. Boy was I wrong.”
Booth found out that the more he created in this genre, the deeper he fell in love. “Western art has such a rich history in American art and culture, and I decided I would join that history.” Through his art Booth hopes to not only keep the history alive but draw parallels to the wild world of crypto art and connect the viewers to the inner cowboy he believes that we all have inside.
“In my mind the West evokes charting the unknown, courage, independence, hard work, and humility,’ Booth says. The journey into the rich texture of a lost but never forgotten Americana also has expanded Booth’s technical skills and inspired him to embody the spirit of exploration to physical paintings from his digitally native roots.
‘High Country’
‘High Country’ is an ode to the tradition, legacy, and free spirit of the American West. An homage to the inner cowboy in us all. For Jeremy Booth, it represents a new expedition, a new frontier. “High Country” is Booth’s first foray into Solana, a community that he admits to being blown away by their vibrance and enthusiasm. Through his signature fusion of Western and Pop art Booth hopes to connect the Solana community to the soul of the American West and provide a window into an era of vibrant cultural significance that he keeps alive through his celebrated artwork.
Booth’s process begins with photo references which is something he learned from Robert Hagan, a renowned 76-year-old traditional Western American artist and personal inspiration for Booth. “He invited me out to Kansas last year (2023) to photograph cowboys,” Booth recalls, “It was a three-day production that consisted of cowboys, corrals, a western town, ponds, open country, and wardrobe.
I captured a ton of really inspiring imagery that would help inform my work.” It was there that Booth photographed a cowboy by the name of Mark from a distance. That photograph laid the groundwork for what would eventually become “High Country.”
‘High Country’ is an edition of 100 pieces with much of the supply going to Booth’s dedicated ‘BOOTS’ collector community. The goal Booth said was to provide his captivated collector base a cross-chain expedition into Solana, whilst also introducing the Solana community to a style that they may not be all too familiar with.
Head over and connect with the Wild West through “High Country” on Exchange Art now!
