Works by Jessica Snow
Jessica Snow is an American abstract artist whose paintings and drawings are distinguished by colourful and playful geometrics. A desire to make each new painting better than the last one continuously inspires the artist to make a painting that rests lightly in the world, a surface filled with metaphorical light, air, color, uplift and freedom. She is based in San Francisco.
"The colors and shapes of my work should hopefully make that person feel more at home in this world. If the painting succeeds in doing that, then I have accomplished something quite wonderful indeed".
Education
The artist earned her BA in Art Studio at the University of California, Davis in 1988 and her Master of Fine Arts at Mills College, Oakland (CA) in 1996. When she arrived at UC Davis as a freshman, she began taking art classes in addition to other classes in the humanities, and from that point on, she was always making art. Additionally, she moved to Paris to pursue her studies in film theory but ended up visiting museums all around the city every day. Although she did consider a more scholarly route, she realized that being an academic was not for her-she was fundamentally an artist. Later she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture for a summer and then went to Mills for graduate school. The artist currently teaches painting, drawing and art history at the University of San Francisco.
Technique
As a multidisciplinary artist, she uses different media: when working with paper, panels or walls, she will employ acrylics while she will paint with oil on canvas or linen. She also recently experimented working on Dibond, a lightweight aluminum panel where she will combine both oil and acrylic and sometimes will use a black fine-point pen when drawing on the surface.
Each work results from preliminary studies drawn with pen or pencil and which sometimes can amount to 20 sketches.
Aesthetically, she wants the painting to look as if it "just happened" and paints in such a way that the brushstrokes disappear and the layers become imperceptible. She has a strong inclination to create something that looks instinctive and effortless. She prefers her paint to be as thin as possible while still holding color so that the light of the white surface it sits on will suffuse and enhance the color. She juxtaposes colors thoughtfully using as little paint as possible to get the desired effect-nothing more, and nothing less. Structure, form, colors and shapes are all fundamental in Jessica's practice - she combines playful curved, geometric and linear forms and shapes with bright color. However, colors aren't arbitrary in her work, they hold visual weight, heaviness or lightness, and after doing a preliminary drawing, she tries to get the color to do the same thing visually as in the monochromatic drawing from which she is working.
Inspiration
"I see my art as being continually at play between order and chaos or between systems that work and those that breakdown. That seems to be how my mind works...between order and chaos, between logic and emotion".
Going to the museums in Paris, while living there during her studies, helped her a great deal to understand the language of painting, the particularities of each artist's syntax. She spent countless hours in front of the paintings by Cézanne, Manet, Matisse, and van Gogh. Her visual art influences include Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Sol Lewitt, Luciano Fontan and Ellsworth Kelly. In search for sources of inspiration, the painter traveled numerous times to London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin and Florence where she was fascinated by the San Marco frescoes of Fra Angelico. Now, living in San Francisco, she travels most frequently to Los Angeles or NYC to look at art.
The SF-based painter has spent years perfecting the art of abstract painting and creating striking pieces that were on display in many solo exhibitions throughout the United States.
Her paintings have also been featured in various group shows worldwide including Australia, the Netherlands, France, and Germany.
Solo Exhibitions
2018
Master of the Nets, Galleri Urbane, Dallas
2017
Let it Flow, a VR exhibition at Les Bains des Docks, Le Havre
(curated by IdeelArt)
2015
Refraction in the Line of Sight, Galleri Urbane, Dallas
2013
In Living Color, Galleri Urbane, Dallas
2010
Multiple Plot Points, Jen Bekman Gallery, NYC
Paintings for the Corner of the Eye, Caffe Museo, SFMOMA
2008
Incident in the Territory of Invention, Merge Gallery, NYC
2007
Hi Jinx, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
2005
Stratagems for Living, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
2004
Orbits of Paradox, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA
2003
The Optimist’s Conundrum, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
2001
Definition Proof, Post, Los Angeles
1999
Eccentricity of the Middle Ground, Four Walls, San Francisco
1998
Recent Paintings, SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery, San Francisco
1997
Fragile Boundaries, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley
Selected Group Exhibitions
2018
Icons:W/13, Kyiv Non Objective, Bulgakov Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine
(curated by Billy Gruner)
Bread & Butter, Galleri Urbane, Dallas (curated by Adrian Zuniga)
Infinite Worlds / Infinite Probabilities, University of Southern Queensland
Art Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia (curated by Kyle Jenkins)
Summer Show, Gallery 1317, San Francisco (curated by Jeff Alan Gard)
RNOP San Francisco, The Great Highway Gallery, San Francisco (curator,
with Billy Gruner) and RNOP – Cincinnati; New Work For A New System, Smith and Co., Cincinnati, OH
Artadia - Bay Area Awardees, Ascent, San Francisco (curated by
Elizabeth Leach)
KenxArteriors, Arteriors, Dallas (curated by Ken Downing)
2017
Black Box, Boecker Contemporary, Heidelberg, Germany
Personals, Skowhegan New Work Project Space, NYC (curated by Paige Laino)
A Call to Action, Kustera Projects Red Hook, Brooklyn
With Liberty and Justice for Some, Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles
Sanctuary City, San Francisco Art Commission Galleries (curated by Monica Lundy)
Carry On: the Art+Architecture Faculty Triennial, Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco (curated by USF Museum Studies graduate students)
The Morning After, The Great Highway Gallery, San Francisco (curated by Leo Bersamina)
2016
Hydrography lll, LaKaserna Artspace, Bad Nieuweschans, Netherlands (curated by Henriëtte van't Hoog and Iemke van Dijk)
Fiction (With Only Daylight Between Us) v.2, Corridor Projects, Dayton, Ohio, traveling to Boecker Contemporary, Heidelberg, Germany and Angelika Studios, High Wycombe, UK (curated by Jeffrey Cortland Jones)
The Great California Art Movement: UC Davis Fine Art Alumni Exhibition 1960-1990, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2015
Colour & Line Are Not Lies, Modern Art Projects, Blue Mountains and Raygun Lab, Toowoomba, Australia (curated by Tarn McLean and Kyle Jenkins, traveling show)
Formeel 2015: Waterverven, Waterland Museum, Purmerend, Netherlands (curated by Piet Knook)
New Abstraction, Traywick Contemporary, Berkeley
Paperazzi 4: Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NYC
2014
Object, Object!!, Helmuth Projects, San Diego (curated by John Oliver Lewis and Jessica McCambly)
Galleri Urbane Presents S.U.M., Salon Urbane at the Thunderbird, Marfa (curated by Adrian Zuniga)
Steamed, Art+Science: Faculty Triennial, Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco (curated by Joyce Grimm)
Paperazzi 3: Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, NYC
2013
Light Space Projects/Rituals of Exhibition, H Gallery, Chiang Mai, Thailand (curated by Giles Ryder)
Color Theory: The Use of Color in Contemporary Art, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art (curated by Katrina Traywick)
Dripping Color Amazement, oqbo galerie, Berlin
Uncharted, Marina Cain Gallery, SF
What's the Point?, Jen Bekman Gallery, NYC (curated by Jeffrey Teuton)
2011
Gifting Abstraction, Soho20 Chelsea Gallery, NYC (curated by Mariangeles Soto-Diaz)
Chroma: About Color, Marina Cain Gallery, SF
2010
Informal Relations, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (curated by Scott Grow)
Touch, Paris Concret (curated by Brent Hallard)
2009
Mixtape, Jen Bekman Projects, NYC
Fate and Freewill, Contemporary Art Space, Riverside, CA (curated by David Leapman)
2007
Colectiva de las Artistas, Galeria Isidro Miranda, Buenos Aires
Art in Embassies, U.S. Embassy, Montevideo, Uruguay
Tree, Linda Hodges Gallery, Seattle, WA
2005
Neo-Mod: New Northern Californian Abstraction, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA and the Monterey Art Museum, Monterey, CA (curated by Diana Daniels)
The Anniversary Show, Rena Bransten Gallery, SF
2004
The World Becomes a Private World: Selections
from the Collection of Penny Cooper and Rena Rosenwasser, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
Architectonics, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Observations, Carl Berg Gallery, Los Angeles
2002
New Painting and Sculpture, Traywick Gallery, Berkeley
Abstraction, Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
2001
Space Oddity, Joseph Nease Gallery, Kansas City
Climax, jennjoy gallery, SF
Poor Walls, Quotidian Gallery, SF
Pierogi Flat Files, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute
2000
Paper Cuts, Rena Bransten Gallery, SF
Works on Paper, Post, Los Angeles
Artcouncil Award Show, Jernigan Wicker Fine Arts, SF
Multiple Sensations:The Pierogi 2000 Flatfiles, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF
Haulin’Ass: Pierogi in L.A., Post, Los Angeles
Yellow: The First Color, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
1999
No Image at New Image, New Image Art, West Hollywood
Scopic: Magnify the Times, San Jose Inst. of Contemporary Art (curated by Julie Deamer)
Nothing But Time, Southern Exposure, SF (curated by David Ross)
A Skowhegan Decade, David Beitzel Gallery, New York
Post-Postcard, Four Walls, San Francisco
1997
Seduced by Surface: 8 Bay Area Painters, University Art Gallery, UC San Diego (curated by Daniel Foster)
Three Artists, Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery, San Jose
State University
Fire and Light, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley
1996
Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
10th Annual National Exhibition, Berkeley Art Center
Emerging Bay Area Artists, Mace Space for Art, San Francisco
2007
American Artists Abroad Program, Montevideo, Uruguay. Participation with the U.S. Embassy in workshops, lectures, and exhibitions.
2002
SECA Nomination, San Francisco Musuem of Modern Art
2000
Artadia Award in the Visual Arts Grant
1995
Edwin and Adalaine Cadogan Fellowship Award
1996
Juror’s Award, Berkeley Art Center’s 10th Annual National Exhibition, selected by Bill Berkson
1994
First Place Award, San Jose Art League’s 2-D
Contemporary, selected by Squeak Carnwath