Statement

In my work I explore memory, emotion, and cognition through visual abstraction. I inquire into the ways in which the signs and symbols found in our physical environment–from signal flags to the smell of rain–influence the movements of our minds and bodies. The imagery in my recent work is drawn from analog charts of ocean currents and a guide to weather symbols used for maritime navigation. These symbols conform a language which I reference and transform through a material-driven process.

The rhythmic mark-making in much my work carries the memory of the movement of my hand across the page or panel, the lines shifting from dark to light as the paintbrush leaves its trace. I often source materials from my surroundings and process them to make paint. Bright or contrasting colors on grounds of earth pigment serve as beacons or signs and punctuate the continuous rhythmic flow present in my larger, meditative pieces as I question how we in turn make our mark on our environment.

The Traveling Drawings can be folded and unfolded like old road maps as I work on them, creating creases and wear on the paper. In referencing maps, I point to the history of cartography and counter cartographies, and I reinsert memory and the body into the space of the map. The drawings begin as two stenciled lines, mirror images of one another. I slowly build the drawings, working from one side of the paper and then the other until the undulating lines join and overlap. In this meeting of the two sides new shapes are formed, offering answers to the questions posed by the first stenciled pencil lines. The shapes which emerge in the drawing process speak to the Surrealist notion of a “third mind” or a “third memory” created in the space between an event and its retelling. The lines hold the trace of the passage of time.

The visual disruption created by the overlapping lines causes the work to vibrate before the viewer’s eyes. Creased and stained, these works display an imperfect symmetry which encourages the viewer toward contemplation and focus. By looking to the slow-moving cycles present in the natural world and sourcing many of my materials in nature, I engage with place and open-up space from which new patterns of thought and movement can emerge.

Bio

Laura Josephine Snyder (b.1983, Charlottesville, VA) is a visual artist whose work explores cognition and movement through a material-driven practice.

Her work engages with signs and symbols found in the physical environment–from signal flags to the smell of rain–visual and sensory languages which influence the movements of our minds and bodies. In her work these languages are expanded, reversed or disrupted–inviting shifts of perspective.

She has shown her work nationally and internationally. In 2024 she had solo exhibitions at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville and Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. She has a MFA from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM) and a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.