Joan Snyder: Earthsongs Review of her solo exhibition in Paris

By Patrick Javault

It was at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s that Joan Snyder executed her first Strokes, which also served as a manifesto. "Stroke" is short for "brushstroke," generally translated [in French] as touche. Snyder’s strokes are short, indistinct bands that she arranges to construct her paintings, maintaining an equal distance between expressionism and minimalism. With these strokes, she can just as easily paint a landscape as build a grid. Earthsongs, the title of one of the works in the exhibition—but also that of a series—belongs to the Fields category; it unites the two primary forces that irrigate the artist's work: nature and music. These are landscapes constructed using spaced-out brushstrokes, with the addition of plants, flowers, leaves, as well as pieces of burlap or balls of papier-mâché. Sometimes, a thin ledge at the bottom of the canvas catches the paint residue that fell during its execution.

Femmes et Fleurs [Women and Flowers] is a large horizontal diptych built on an arrangement of broad, vertical, white or pinkish brushstrokes, upon which sit bright splashes of color that either imitate flowers or content themselves with simply being what they are. Added to this are small, lively marks of asemic writing. The women of the title are crudely sketched, almost caricatural nudes nestled within small pockets between two brushstrokes. In the center, one seems to recognize a vertical figure whose axis of symmetry is the dividing line between the two parts of the diptych. This could be Demeter, or simply a woman bound to the earth in this overflowing hymn to nature.

Another diptych, Deep in Me, is built upon seven horizontal pencil lines, upon which float equally horizontal brushstrokes—mainly black and white—creating a genuine rhythm alongside long drips. At the junction of the two panels, two symmetrical triangles are formed out of rose stems and petals. The words "deep sadness inside of me" are written in several ways, connected to or echoing "with human sufferings." On the right edge of this field-score sits a golden willow, drawn in a single gesture with paint applied straight from the tube. One imagines it ready to weep, just like in the famous jazz standard.

[Translated from the French]