Six Decades of Joan Snyder’s Transformative Abstraction 'Body & Soul'
By Ana Novi
On view at Thaddaeus Ropac London through February 5, 2025, “Body & Soul” offers an unprecedented journey through six decades of Joan Snyder’s pioneering artistic practice. Spanning from her early Stroke paintings of the 1960s to new works created this year, the exhibition traces the evolution of Snyder’s deeply personal and visceral language of abstraction. Known for her fearless interweaving of autobiographical elements with rich material experimentation, Snyder has consistently challenged the male-dominated movements of Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and Color Field painting.
Through her profound engagement with themes of love, grief, joy, and spirituality, Snyder has expanded the boundaries of contemporary abstraction. Her use of unconventional materials—straw, dried herbs, plastic grapes, and glitter—imbues her paintings with tactile and emotional resonance, creating works that are as much about physical presence as they are about transformation. Recurring motifs such as flowers, ponds, trees, and bodily forms reappear throughout her oeuvre, not as fixed symbols but as evolving reflections of her life’s phases and artistic reinvention.
In “Body & Soul,” Snyder’s work becomes a compelling dialogue between the material and the metaphysical, inviting viewers to witness moments of alchemy where the personal becomes universal, and the physical intertwines with the spiritual. Whether evoking the solemnity of altars, the exuberance of symphonies, or the cyclical rhythms of nature, Snyder’s art resonates with an unflinching honesty that situates female subjectivity and emotion at the heart of her practice.
As this remarkable exhibition continues to captivate audiences, Whitewall spoke with Snyder to explore her artistic journey, her innovative use of materials, and the profound influence of her work on contemporary art.
WHITEWALL: How did your experience of emerging into the male-dominated art scene in the 1960s and 70s shape your approach to centering female subjectivity in your painting?
JOAN SNYDER: It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how I thought about the male dominated art world in the late ’60s and early ’70s. As a very young artist in the mid 60’s, my work was directed toward a female sensibility. In the early ’70s I began showing my work, but still my main focus was on my own practice. I was immersed in the challenges it presented, the progress I was making and deeply engaged in discovering my own visual language, a process that took years, even decades, and continues to this day. I wasn’t actively opposing anything in the early ’70s, though I didn’t have a particular affinity for Color Field Painting, Pop Art, or Minimalism—the kinds of work many male artists were creating at the time. As I’ve often said, I wanted more in a painting, not less. From very early on, I was adding materials to my work, collaging, incorporating wallpaper, plaster, patterned cloth and fringe. It’s surprising that I didn’t become a sculptor.
