Joan Snyder

Joan Snyder’s abstract paintings are autobiographical.  In the 1960s she began creating ‘stroke’ paintings using gestural colourful brushstrokes. In the following decades she has incorporated provocative symbols, words and experimental materials into her paintings.

Snyder says, “The strokes in my paintings speak of my life and experiences. They are sometimes soft…they sometimes laugh and are often violent…they bleed and cry and struggle to tell my story with marks and colours and lines and shapes. I speak of love and anguish, of fear and mostly of hope.”

Inside Angry Women, two female figures expose themselves. Snyder has faintly written the words ‘sad and’ just above the phrase ‘angry women.’ She draws attention to how feminist artists have been projected as angry women, when in reality they are profoundly sad about gender inequality. In the bottom left corner, she references ‘Venus’ the Greek goddess of love and ‘Kali’ the Hindu goddess of death, often associated with sexuality. The work speaks of sadness, anger, death, sexuality and love.