Body & Soul: Six Decades of Joan Snyder’s Abstraction

On view at Thaddaeus Ropac London through February 5, 2025, “Body & Soul” offers an unprecedented journey through six decades of Joan Snyder’s pioneering artistic practice. Spanning from her early Stroke paintings of the 1960s to new works created this year, the exhibition traces the evolution of Snyder’s deeply personal and visceral language of abstraction. Known for her fearless interweaving of autobiographical elements with rich material experimentation, Snyder has consistently challenged the male-dominated movements of Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and Color Field painting.

Through her profound engagement with themes of love, grief, joy, and spirituality, Snyder has expanded the boundaries of contemporary abstraction. Her use of unconventional materials—straw, dried herbs, plastic grapes, and glitter—imbues her paintings with tactile and emotional resonance, creating works that are as much about physical presence as they are about transformation. Recurring motifs such as flowers, ponds, trees, and bodily forms reappear throughout her oeuvre, not as fixed symbols but as evolving reflections of her life’s phases and artistic reinvention.

In “Body & Soul,” Snyder’s work becomes a compelling dialogue between the material and the metaphysical, inviting viewers to witness moments of alchemy where the personal becomes universal, and the physical intertwines with the spiritual. Whether evoking the solemnity of altars, the exuberance of symphonies, or the cyclical rhythms of nature, Snyder’s art resonates with an unflinching honesty that situates female subjectivity and emotion at the heart of her practice.

As this remarkable exhibition continues to captivate audiences, Whitewall spoke with Snyder to explore her artistic journey, her innovative use of materials, and the profound influence of her work on contemporary art.

WHITEWALL: How did your experience of emerging into the male-dominated art scene in the 1960s and 70s shape your approach to centering female subjectivity in your painting?

JOAN SNYDER: It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how I thought about the male dominated art world in the late ’60s and early ’70s. As a very young artist in the mid 60’s, my work was directed toward a female sensibility. In the early ’70s I began showing my work, but still my main focus was on my own practice. I was immersed in the challenges it presented, the progress I was making and deeply engaged in discovering my own visual language, a process that took years, even decades, and continues to this day. I wasn’t actively opposing anything in the early ’70s, though I didn’t have a particular affinity for Color Field Painting, Pop Art, or Minimalism—the kinds of work many male artists were creating at the time. As I’ve often said, I wanted more in a painting, not less. From very early on, I was adding materials to my work, collaging, incorporating wallpaper, plaster, patterned cloth and fringe. It’s surprising that I didn’t become a sculptor.

Joan Snyder Blends Autobiography and Abstraction

WW: In “Body & Soul,” your work reflects a deliberate blending of autobiography with abstraction. How do you see the act of painting as both a personal reflection and a means of expanding the language of abstraction beyond its historical confines?

JS: That’s an interesting question. The two things are one for me—the personal and the abstract. It’s all one language. I feel like I could dig into this question; it kind of gets to the heart of painting. How does one develop a language without speaking personally? There would be a rupture. This is something I work on with students. It’s about not just pushing paint around, making something abstract, but trying to say something, personal or not, but something, with marks and colors. 

“It’s about not just pushing paint around, making something abstract, but trying to say something,”

Joan Snyder

WW: The inclusion of unconventional materials in your work—such as straw, dried herbs, and plastic grapes—challenges traditional hierarchies of art-making. How do you see these materials as contributing to the tactile and emotional dimension of your paintings?

JS: The materials I use are just part of the painting, part of the language. Plastic grapes might add humor to serious moments. That could be necessary.

Meaningful Symbols and Immersive Worlds in the Work of Joan Snyder

WW: Motifs like trees, flowers, ponds, and bodily forms recur throughout your practice, often recontextualized across decades. How do these symbols evolve in meaning as they are revisited in works such as Painting at the Pond or Come to Pearl Pond? Do you view them as constants, or as reflections of the different phases of your life and career?

JS: They’re both. The ponds seem to be a bit of a constant—dark, deep, black, meditative, beautiful. They’re about nature, sometimes strewn with flowers, straw, or paint. I paint ponds. The constant is nature. 

WW: Many of your works, including The Orchard / The Altar and Love’s Deep Grapes, create immersive worlds that bridge the material and the spiritual. How do you envision the role of the viewer in these works—are they witnesses, participants, or something more metaphysical?

JS: I always hope the viewer will love my work, and will get something meaningful from it. But I don’t think about what that might be… what a viewer might come away with. 

“I always hope the viewer will love my work, and will get something meaningful from it,”

Joan Snyder

An Ever-Evolving Relationship with Art and Nature in “Field” Paintings

WW: The natural world seems to play a dual role in your practice, serving as both a concrete subject and a metaphorical space for spiritual and emotional exploration. How does the interplay of nature and abstraction in your Field paintings and more recent works reflect your evolving relationship with the environment and your sense of self?

JS: OMG. Who could answer that without writing a dissertation? I LOVE fields—pumpkins fields, fields of sunflowers and wildflowers, poppy fields and even moonfields—all the colors! I love the building of fields in my paintings…layering them starting with stains then straw and twigs, mud, buds, poppy pods, and always lots of paint. For me it’s not unlike planting and tending a garden, going deep into the garden, something I did much more of when I was younger.

WW: Do you see your recent works as building upon the foundation of your practice, or do they feel like they’re exploring new territory within that continuation?

JS: My recent work is a continuation of my practice, of course. And every new work, I would hope, explores new territory. If you look back at my work over the years, you’ll clearly see a great deal of continuity. At least, I hope so.