About this episode
The episode features an interview with painter Joan Snyder, discussing her artistic journey and emotional expression in her work.
TODAY on the GWA Podcast is the esteemed painter Joan Snyder. Hailed for her large-scale gestural canvases that pulsate with colour, line and text, and are often layered with, buried in, or imploded with images of flowers, faces, or bodies, Snyder's all-encompassing works are nothing but electric. Sometimes large scale, with brushstrokes that populate the canvas like gemstones or musical scores with a whole range of keys: look at Snyder's work for a while, and it's like whole worlds emerge. Simultaneously soft but violent, beautiful yet aggressive, her works can evoke every season of emotion, just as she once wrote in her journal in 1972: "The strokes in my painting speak of my life and experiences. They are sometimes soft, they sometimes laugh, and are often violent. They bleed and cry. I speak of love and anguish, of fear, and mostly of hope." Born in 1940, Snyder came to art not straight away, but by chance during her studies at Rutgers University, when she was studying sociology in preparation for a career in social work. But it was under the mentorship of Billy Prichard that she pivoted to art, showing just how important teachers can be. Today we meet Joan in her Brooklyn…
People in this episode
Host: Katy Hessel
Guest: Joan Snyder
Topics covered
- painting
- art mentorship
- emotional expression
- female artists
- Brooklyn studio
Keywords
- Joan Snyder
- gestural canvases
- art mentorship
- emotional art
- female artists
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Rutgers University, MacArthur Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters
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