July 2020
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
John Patrick Snyder
Artist Statement
My work renders what I perceive as the truest depiction of landscape--an amalgamation of inherent wilderness happenings and major human interventions or more simply put a series of actions and marks. Through this blurred combination of contrasting elements, we are left with a space that we have come to call nature. In my wood sculptures and drawings, I seek out processes and materials that intimately interact with both my mind and body to achieve a greater understanding of my current locality.
All the wood sculptures are all cut from the same Red Oak tree that naturally fell in a strong storm. This wood was painstakingly taken from the woods and transported to the studio. Within all that pain and time comes knowledge, knowledge of place and material. This wood has been deconstructed from its indigenous state and fabricated to embody the human spirit. These figurative wood objects are both stable and insecure, relying on each other for support without recognition. With a tuft of the artists hair on the top to symbolize the intersection of nature and culture under the appearance of new growth. The smaller wood sculptures are slightly different in form as they are not figurative, and they are wall mounted, but still reconstructions of deconstruction. Inserting my lover’s hair into the active beetle larvae tunnels creating an ongoing relationship between body and nature.
In my two-dimensional work I mimic the paradigm of the Anthropocene by drawing mechanical grids (human intervention) overlaid by an abundance of tick marks (wilderness happenings) to build up this action and reaction perspective. With the excessive meditative application of ink marks the paper is torn and altered lowering the preciousness but heightening the fragility. With fibers of the paper torn a different dimension of terrain is developed and two different personifications of landscape are visible simultaneously.
INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
John Patrick Snyder
Artist Statement
My work renders what I perceive as the truest depiction of landscape--an amalgamation of inherent wilderness happenings and major human interventions or more simply put a series of actions and marks. Through this blurred combination of contrasting elements, we are left with a space that we have come to call nature. In my wood sculptures and drawings, I seek out processes and materials that intimately interact with both my mind and body to achieve a greater understanding of my current locality.
All the wood sculptures are all cut from the same Red Oak tree that naturally fell in a strong storm. This wood was painstakingly taken from the woods and transported to the studio. Within all that pain and time comes knowledge, knowledge of place and material. This wood has been deconstructed from its indigenous state and fabricated to embody the human spirit. These figurative wood objects are both stable and insecure, relying on each other for support without recognition. With a tuft of the artists hair on the top to symbolize the intersection of nature and culture under the appearance of new growth. The smaller wood sculptures are slightly different in form as they are not figurative, and they are wall mounted, but still reconstructions of deconstruction. Inserting my lover’s hair into the active beetle larvae tunnels creating an ongoing relationship between body and nature.
In my two-dimensional work I mimic the paradigm of the Anthropocene by drawing mechanical grids (human intervention) overlaid by an abundance of tick marks (wilderness happenings) to build up this action and reaction perspective. With the excessive meditative application of ink marks the paper is torn and altered lowering the preciousness but heightening the fragility. With fibers of the paper torn a different dimension of terrain is developed and two different personifications of landscape are visible simultaneously.
J.P. Snyder is currently based in rural Appalachia, specifically, Athens, Ohio where he received an MFA from Ohio University in 2020. Making sculptural objects from naturally felled trees and human hair to highlight the intersection of nature and culture. Using only wood from the forest gives J.P. the opportunity to intimately interact with all aspects of his surroundings and to achieve a greater understanding of the cultural philosophy of his current locality.
Originally a printmaker, J.P. still holds process as an integral aspect of art practice. Creating process-oriented drawings that are inspired by forms of wilderness happenings. Creating ways to not just depict but to embody a terrain so that two different personifications of landscape are visible simultaneously.
J.P. Snyder’s work has been featured in Sculpture Magazine and he has permanent sculptures at Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN, and Dairy Barn Arts Center, Athens, OH.