#1 of 2
Art-hearts on Fire in Two New Shows
By Al Morch, Of the Examiner Staff
Emotions characterize the work of Dan Snyder and Jim Dine.
Snyder, whose two-dimensional, unscaled, cut-out figures on wood are on view (through Oct. 12) at the Allrich Gallery, 251 Post St., explores his maturing emotional life in a series of explosive figurative gestures that deal directly with himself.
Snyder goes straight to the burning, raw-nerved, heart-on-his-sleeve center of himself
Although he’s a classically-trained sculptor who studied at Rome’s American Academy for two years on a Prix de Rome fellowship, Snyder goes straight to the burning, raw-nerved, heart-on-his-sleeve center of himself in his gestural free-standing and wall-mounted cut-outs.
He’s utilized the children’s art approach before; but it was a more secure and naive body-of-work reviewed four years ago at Allrich. This time he’s come to grips with himself, and, in tumultuous fashion, tests his anxieties and fears for real.
“These pieces,” Snyder observes in his gallery statement, “are explorations of raw emotion … with the sensibilityof a man who has been suspended by emotional terrorism.”
You’d better believe it!
In many of the works, the head area bursts into V-shapes of violent, confused blacks, yellows and reds. In some, such as “Fish Out of Water,” the human head has been replaced by a primitive mask-face, and the figure brandishes a sword and carries a valentine’s heart as a shield. Obviously, romance and sexual relationships play a great part in the artist’s unrest. In one of the less “busy” cut-outs, “Does it Show?,” a giant arrow shoots from the male figure’s chest into a heart suspended in space.
In a few works, Snyder represents the human female as a visitor to earth from another planet. She is the fiery, disruptive alien in our midst, suggesting, perhaps, that this is the reason men have always had trouble understanding women. Snyder may have a point.
