Profane Grace in Fragmented Form

Dan Snyder’s “Roadside Angels, Saints and Muses” offers no easy consolations—only the quiet sovereignty of figures who stand broken yet upright. 

Across the collection, there is a strong interplay between figurative and abstract expression, creating a visceral impact that commands attention. Through his masterful control over material, gesture, and space, Snyder crafts a modern pantheon: humble yet majestic, fractured yet illuminated.

These are not deities on pedestals, but liminal beings—caught between departure and arrival, frailty and resilience, the weight of materials and the light of spirit. It asks us to see the divine in displacement and the sacred in the cracked and cast aside. In this, Snyder remains both provocateur and midwife—ushering in grace from the margins, and meaning along the winding road of life.

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Dan Snyder's Pilgrimage of the Mundane:

One encounters Dan Snyder's "Roadside, Angels, Saints, and Muses" not so much as a collection of sculptures, but as a silent pilgrimage. These ceramic figures, life-sized yet strangely animated, stand like sentinels along a forgotten stretch of the everyday, their forms evoking a mashup of roadside vernacular, religious iconography, and an undeniable sense of human fragility. They are neither wholly secular nor devoutly pious, but something in between, much like the faded roadside shrines and forgotten statuary one might stumble upon in the course of a long journey.

Snyder's figures, crafted with a palpable connection to the material—each curve, each detail, meticulously rendered in clay—remind us of the ongoing conversation between our contemporary lives and the echoes of history. They evoke a lineage of unnamed creators, those who shaped our shared visual language through their work, whether in the grand cathedrals of old or the humble workshops of anonymous artisans. One cannot help but see in these "angels" and "saints" a reflection of the human need to imbue the ordinary with the extraordinary, to find meaning and solace in the everyday.

The sculptures blend disparate cultural elements, creating new forms that invite viewers to consider how culture is built and reshaped through ongoing explorations. The figures encourage imaginative play and a willingness to see beyond the surface and embrace the ambiguity within. Like vessels filled with forgotten stories and unspoken desires, they are neither old nor new, strictly functional nor solely aesthetic, but rather containers for the imagination.

A sense of melancholy or unease might be felt in the presence of these figures, but there is also profound recognition. They are the discarded and the revered, the overlooked and the cherished, all brought together in a silent tableau that speaks to the human condition. Snyder's "Roadside, Angels, Saints, and Muses" is, in essence, a testament to the enduring power of the handmade, the capacity of art to transform the mundane into the sacred, and the ways in which journeys seek signs of grace and meaning along the winding road of life.