Charles Snowden b. 1989

Using symbolic imagery from antiquity and everyday life, Charles Snowden’s ceramic sculptures reflect on the cycles of life and death. Invoking ancient rituals, he recasts apotropaic objects—protective forms intended to ward off threats of evil or harm—with imagery from nature. Senescence refers to the process of deterioration with age, indicating the loss of a cell’s power for division or growth. With the garden as a site for the investigation of mortality and clay as a material synonymous with the body, the artist recalls historical imagery as a vehicle for understanding the temporal nature of our existence.

Snowden mines historical rituals both for their connection to the regenerative processes at work within nature, as well as the symbiotic relationship between life, death, and decay. At the intersection of sculpting, gardening, and apotropaic ritual, his works confront the body’s inextricable link to nature and mortality. The hand itself, in tending to the garden and sculpting clay, becomes a votive object that dismantles the notion that there is any separation between us and the natural world.

Charles Snowden (b. 1989, San Diego, CA; Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain and Los Angeles, CA) received his BA from Humboldt State University and his MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Snowden’s solo exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Hill Street Country Club, Oceanside, CA; and Blue Gate Gallery, Oceanside, CA. Group exhibitions include Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA; San Diego Art Institute, CA; Millard Sheets Art Center, Pomona, CA; and Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA. His works are in the permanent collection of the San Diego Art Institute and have been featured in Hyperallergic, Artillery Mag, and Cultured Mag.