Clinton Snider

Over approximately the past decade and a half since I began to exhibit, I have, through honest observation and contemplation, been creating art that explores the dichotomy of loss and rebirth. Through a variety of materials, predominantly paint, I focus in on the transitional spaces between these elusive elements and others, such as history and memory, growth and decay, man and nature — and search for a visual truth/balance.

Detroit has been a perfect backdrop to explore these notions, as the city is itself the embodiment of these inseparable aspects of the cycles of life. In the 300-plus years since the city was founded, it has gone from wetlands and forests teeming with wildlife, to modest farms, to encroaching industry that expended fertile ground, to a current state of post-industrial wasteland and a waning population. Yet it is against this sometimes harsh backdrop that life is revealed to be both fragile and enduring, maintaining vestiges of the city’s strength and dignity.