Pulpo (triptych), 2018, Handmade watercolor and beeswax on paper mounted to cradled wood panel , 20 x 30 inches, 20 x 10 inches each
Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “Currents”, a solo exhibition of work by Laura Snyder. The exhibition opens on Friday, December 5 at our Libbie Avenue location. There will be an artist talk on Saturday, December 6 at 2pm. The show runs through February 7.
“Currents” follows the threads of Laura Snyder’s practice as they diverge and come back together in unexpected ways. The exhibition includes works on paper and panel that shift between symmetry and disruption as the artist explores the give and take of our relationship to the natural world. Together, these works all form a type of cartography that maps rhythm and flowing movement.
After Rivera, 2025, Watercolor on paper, 11 x 11 inches
In my work I explore memory, emotion, and cognition through visual abstraction. I inquire into the ways in which the signs and symbols found in our physical environment–from signal flags to the smell of rain–influence the movements of our minds and bodies. The imagery in my recent work is drawn from analog charts of ocean currents and a guide to weather symbols used for maritime navigation. These symbols conform a language which I reference and transform through a material-driven process.
The rhythmic mark-making in much of my work carries the memory of the movement of my hand across the page or panel, the lines shifting from dark to light as the paintbrush leaves its trace. I often source materials from my surroundings and process them to make paint. Bright or contrasting colors on grounds of earth pigment serve as beacons or signs and punctuate the continuous rhythmic flow present in my larger, meditative pieces as I question how we in turn make our mark on our environment.
The “Traveling Drawings” can be folded and unfolded like old road maps as I work on them, creating creases and wear on the paper. In referencing maps, I point to the history of cartography and counter cartographies, and I reinsert memory and the body into the space of the map. The drawings begin as two stenciled lines, mirror images of one another. I slowly build the drawings, working from one side of the paper and then the other until the undulating lines join and overlap. In this meeting of the two sides new shapes are formed, offering answers to the questions posed by the first stenciled pencil lines. The shapes which emerge in the drawing process speak to the Surrealist notion of a “third mind” or a “third memory” created in the space between an event and its retelling. The lines hold the trace of the passage of time.
The visual disruption created by the overlapping lines causes the work to vibrate before the viewer’s eyes. Creased and stained, these works display an imperfect symmetry which encourages the viewer toward contemplation and focus. By looking to the slow-moving cycles present in the natural world and sourcing many of my materials in nature, I engage with place and open-up space from which new patterns of thought and movement can emerge.
– Laura Snyder, 2025
Laura Josephine Snyder (b.1983, Charlottesville, VA) is a visual artist whose work explores cognition and movement through a material-driven practice.
She has shown her work nationally and internationally. In 2024 she had solo exhibitions at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville and Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. She has a MFA from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM) and a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.