Kevin Snipes

Courtesy John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
Artist website: https://kevinsnipes.com
To purchase artwork, please contact the artist or gallery directly.

Biography

Kevin Snipes was born in Philadelphia, but grew up mostly in Cleveland, Ohio. He received a B.F.A. in ceramics and drawing from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1994. After leaving grad school at the University of Florida in 2003 Kevin has led a seemingly nomadic artistic life, constantly making making no matter where he is.

Kevin has participated in several artist residency programs, including the Clay Studio, in Philadelphia and Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, in New Castle, Maine and received a Taunt Fellowship from the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana 2008. Exhibiting both nationally and internationally, including a recent solo exhibition at the Society of Arts and Craft, Boston; Akar, Iowa City and Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis. Kevin has exhibited as far away as Jingdezhen, China. Kevin combines his love of constructing unconventional pottery with an obsessive need to draw on everything that he produces, creating a uniquely dynamic body of work. As of spring 2022 he resides in Denver, CO.

Statement

As an artist working with three-dimensional space, I use the tension between interior and exterior and front versus back to create symbolic binaries, which can echo much of human experience in contrast one from another, not just physically but also psychologically and intellectually.

I refer to the term otherness, which often embodies the weight of my own lived experiences. Conceptually otherness is the precursor that leads to multiple types of discrimination. Throughout my life as an artist who happens to have brown skin I have put my body in contrast to others around me without a choice. But instead of choosing to make works that focus on isolating the Black experience, I have been driven to explore the underpinnings of discrimination. As an African-American artist I’ve chosen to express the burden of often being seen as an “other” by exploring the root causes of discrimination, which is believed to be intricately involved with human psychology, social structures and even the development of individual self-awareness. The things which give humans complex awareness of existence and compassion towards others, also supplies us with the ability to impose hierarchies and to compartmentalize everything that we have awareness of.

Featured Art

Clap
Ceramic
9” x 4.5” x 5.5”
2021
$1,800

Bicycle Kids
Ceramic
16” x 4.75 x 8.5”
2018
Private collection; not for sale

(Photo not available)

Brickman
Mixed media on paper
12” x 9”
2018
Private collection; not for sale