Snyder to give Malloy Lecture March 18
Joan Snyder (Photo by Marni Marjorelle)
Painter Joan Snyder, an artist known for a willingness to experiment with materials and technique, will deliver Skidmore鈥檚 Malloy Visiting Artist Lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 18. Free and open to the public, the lecture will be in the Filene Recital Hall on the Skidmore College campus.
The event marks a return to Saratoga Springs for Snyder, who was a guest artist at Yaddo, the Saratoga Springs artists鈥� retreat, in 2004. Snyder鈥檚 work was featured in 鈥淭he Jewel Thief,鈥� a critically acclaimed multi-media exhibition at Skidmore鈥檚 Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in 2010-2011.
An abstract artist, Snyder is known for what Roberta Smith, writing in The New York Times, calls a 鈥渟pirited, in-your-face, opulently textured, outrageously colorful style鈥� developed over 40 years. That style, Smith added, 鈥渇orces Abstract Expressionist fervor through a Minimalist sieve into its own private Idaho of Post-Minimalism.鈥�
Snyder herself says, 鈥淚 speak in a visual language that I鈥檝e developed over many years. It鈥檚 an inner dialogue that often begins with some writing on tiny sketches while listening to music. These ideas for painting then appear on unbleached linen with many layers of paint and often other materials such a silk, burlap, dirt, dried flowers, berries, herbs, and glitter. Why, in the end, it all seems to work is a mystery, sometimes even to me.鈥�
The MacArthur Foundation, which selected Snyder for one of its fellowships in 2007, believes that Snyder鈥檚 work communicates universal messages. In its award announcement the foundation noted, 鈥淲hile her paintings mirror her personal experience, the visual messages she provides through her images convey universal and readily understood emotions鈥�. Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting and inspired a generation of emerging artists.鈥�
Because (2012), oil, acrylic, paper mache, herbs
on linen, 48 in. by 60 in. Courtesy of the artist
and Tierney Gardarin, NYC.
A native of Highland Park, N.J., Snyder earned an A.B. degree at Douglass College
and an M.F.A. degree at Rutgers University. She first gained public attention in the
early 1970s with her gestural and elegant 鈥渟troke paintings,鈥� which used the grid
to deconstruct and retell the story of abstract painting. By the late 鈥�70s, having
abandoned the formality of the grid, Snyder began to more explicitly incorporate symbols
and text, and the paintings took on a more complex materiality. These early works
were included in the 1973 and 1981 Whitney biennials and the 1975 Corcoran Biennial.
In addition to the MacArthur Foundation award, Snyder is the recipient of a National
Endowment for the Arts fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.
In 2005 the Jewish Museum in New York City presented a 35-year survey of her work,
which was later exhibited at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Mass. Abrams Books
published a monograph, Joan Snyder, in conjunction with the exhibition. In 2011, Dancing
with the Dark: Joan Snyder Prints 1963-2010, a retrospective of Snyder鈥檚 prints, opened
at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey and then traveled throughout the U.S. Snyder鈥檚
work is included in many public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum,
and the Phillips Collection, among others.
