Liminal Borders
Many of my works are based on observations of the ever-shifting conditions of the American landscape. Working with and against the historical legacy of landscape painting, these images reflect our uneasy relationship with nature and consider the effects of social and environmental transformation on the earth and the psyche.
Many of these vistas are unpopulated, giving one the sensation of being first on the scene to witness a subtle drama about to unfold or, perhaps, the last to arrive just after something has occurred. While these artworks blur the threshold of past and future, reality and imagination, and humor and sorrow, they strive to reveal the significance of a moment or something of portent just out of reach and invite the viewer to consider the interconnectedness of humans and the natural environment.
-Clinton Snider
Clinton Snider Intro: by Denise Fanning for the open of Liminal Borders
Central Michigan University, Thursday April 13, 2023
Clint is a masterful and meticulous painter who has long been a central figure in the Detroit arts scene-- and he’s an artist who I have been really lucky to know and follow the work of for more than twenty years now. What I love about Clint’s work and his lens on the world is that it often takes us intimately into forgotten corners and right up to the edges of forsaken and forlorn spaces that many of us might have otherwise overlooked. His work gives voice to voiceless places. It tells old and imagined stories of place, while simultaneously re-writing new stories, as now told through the lens of his paintings. They weave together stories of both lush and desolate spaces, and stories that speak of neglect, but also of thriving.
His paintings are rich with allegory, with touches of both humor and gravity, and infused with personal story. They speak of the unknown past and an imagined future. A past that often illuminates the complicated relationship between humans and nature-- one that often reveals the impact of human neglect and abuse on our environment, while simultaneously reminding us of nature’s persistent urge to thrive and the knowledge that it WILL persist beyond all fraught human behavior.
All of this is to say nothing of his also masterful use of color, and his brilliant handling of light -- a light and palette that is really unique to Clint’s work, a light that feels almost like half-light, like impending dusk, like the light of an aptly titled, liminal space….
-Denise Fanning