Stuart Snoddy

b.1981, Honduras; Lives and works in Indianapolis, IN

Stuart Snoddy's painting practice focuses on the complexity of self through a fantastical exploration of loneliness, family, otherness and imagination.  Acting as both author and director, the artist integrates storytelling and fantasy into his paintings to illustrate a fabricated exotic culture.  With ties to the historical tradition of American illustration, academic painting, and cinema, these "pleasant fictions" portray people and environments that, while inspired by real life, surface from the artist's yearning imagination and solidly occupy their own world.  Working with oil on paper, panel and canvas in addition to gouache on paper, often in small formats, Snoddy employs vibrant recurring color palettes and further animates his work with quick, energetic brushwork.  Rather than simply illustrating real-life pleasant memories, ones that deteriorate or sour when over-scrutinized, Snoddy's observational paintings are snapshots of thoughts and memories that emerge from consciousness, kept safe from over-analytical deterioration by remaining firmly rooted in fantasy.  His work is representative of the unease of nostalgia and his search for emotional richness, conveyed through the characters' physical embodiment of longing, elation, sadness and love.  By not shying away from the complete story of self, Snoddy's constructed fantasies nurture the narrative of human life as cohesive intellectual and emotional beings.

Snoddy’s inaugural exhibition with Massey Klein Gallery, The Poet Aster, was on view from June 3rd - July 16th, 2022. Additionally, works by the artist were featured alongside gallery artists Courtney Childress and Peter Frederiksen at last year’s edition of Future Fair’s Annual Holiday Market, held from December 6th to 20th, 2022. Snoddy has exhibited across the United States, including group exhibitions at the Indianapolis Art Center (2017), the McLean County Art Center (2016), and the Harrison Center for the Arts (2016). More recently, his work was featured in a two-person exhibition with gallery artist Amy Applegate at Edington Gallery (here and there, 2023), and in solo exhibitions at the Farmer Family Gallery at the Ohio State University at Lima (The Fantasy Figures, 2019) and the Harrison Center for the Arts (Singsong, 2019). The artist and his paintings have garnered recognition in numerous print and online publications, including New American Paintings, Hi-Fructose and Booooooom.