RISD : Rhode Island School of Design : PROFILES




DEAN SNYDER risd connection: Assistant Professor and Head, Department of Sculpture; at RISD since 2000 about his work: Dean Snyder’s nonrepresentational sculpture takes shape from unconventional materials joined with various combinations of wood, paint and cast and forged metal. Bloated, immobilized spheres and wriggling tubes that seem to want to jump off the walls strike many viewers as both humorous and pathetic, which is just what the artist has in mind: “I work very hard to transform my sense of tragedy and sadness into comic absurdities,” he says, adding that he finds inspiration in everything from cartoons to family life. Depriving utilitarian objects of their useful qualities — deflating a sphere or weighing down a balloon — underscores his view of nature as an “unruly enormous mess,” he explains, and encourages the objects to “pose, alluding to the sensation of having an inner life” and appearing born rather than made. “These objects fascinate me,” he says. “They ask more questions than they answer. I especially like it when they ask, ‘Where did I come from and what the hell am I doing here?’” what the critics say: “Dean Snyder’s installation merges sculpture and drawing to create an environment that is, like a playground or a junkyard, playful and loud, familiar and grim.... Although each of these drawings is slightly different, when grouped together they create a range of irregular patterns that recall comic books, doodling, or surrealist automatic writing.... There is something humorous, lyrical, odd, and erotic in these works; they remind one of an animated cartoon world, both familiar and surreal, inhabited and dream-like.” — Vesela Sretenovic, curator, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI selected solo shows 2004 Dean Snyder: Recent Sculpture and Drawing, College of St. Rose Art Gallery, Albany, NY 1999 Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, Lima, Peru 1998 Jennjoy Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1997 Miller Block Gallery, Boston, MA 1994 Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL 1991 Allrich Gallery, San Francisco, CA selected group exhibitions 2004 179th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary Art, National Academy of Design, NYC 2004 Earthly Delights, Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston 2003 Obsessive Patterns, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI 2002 Chain Reaction: Rube Goldberg and Contemporary Art, Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY 2001 DeCordova Annual, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA 2001 A Common Legacy: H.C. Westerman’s Influences on Five Contemporary Sculptors, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, Nashville, TN 1999 Synergy, Usdan Gallery, Bennington [VT] College public collections DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS education School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MFA in Sculpture, 1978 Lanchester Polytechnic College of Art and Design, Coventry, UK, postgraduate studies, 1975-76 Kansas City Art Institute, BFA in Sculpture, 1975 awards/fellowships/residencies RISD Professional Development Grant, 2001 Williams College Center for the Arts and Humanities, Artist Fellowship, 2000 Pouch Cove Foundation, St. John�s, Newfoundland, 1998 Vermont State Council for the Arts Fellowship, 1995 NEA Artist�s Fellowship, 1995 New England Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, 1995