The Female Experience
Joan Snyder, Blain|Southern, London
Very few people have had the ability to have lasting career as an artist, and if you’re a woman, it only becomes more difficult. Joan Snyder is one of the few who have managed to not only survive in the art world, but thrive and advocate for other female artists. Her latest exhibition of new work, called Rosebuds & Rivers, at Blain|Southern in London is a continuation of her finely tuned vocabulary created through a feminine lens.
In the 1960s, Snyder was making beautiful abstract paintings, usually based on grids. However, they followed a very well-trodden (and male dominated) style of work. Eventually, Snyder joined the surge of second-wave feminism in the 1970s, and her paintings departed into much different territory. Up until that point, rarely were traditionally feminine styles, colors, and gestures ever positively received in visual art. Symbolism and narrative was also no longer en vogue in the 1970s, when Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and Conceptualism reigned supreme. For over forty years, Snyder has since developed and honed her craft, which includes allusions to bodies, a vibrant color palette, and inspirations deriving from myth and religion.
In some ways, Snyder embraced what was considered negative and was able to change people’s views of the female experience and feminine imagery. Her new paintings at Blain|Southern are a prime example of this at play. The colors are vibrant and warm: yellow, orange, pinks and purples. Many of the paintings reference flowers (and even include dried bits of wood and other flora,) the ancient Roman myth that revolve around female goddesses, and one work was even named Amor Matris, meaning in Latin “a mother’s love.” The results are messy, energetic, and beautiful, and it is wonderful to see an artist late in her career get the recognition she absolutely deserves.
