OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

New Paintings

Ben Snead

October 7 - 29, 2005
Reception: Friday, October 7, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

O·H+T gallery is pleased to present New Paintings by Ben Snead. Though Snead continues to work with natural imagery (fish, frogs, bees, spiders) arranged in geometric patterns, he breaks new ground on several levels with these paintings.

In a departure from the symmetrical, kaleidoscopic patterns seen in his earlier work, Snead begins to vary the size and postures of his specimens. Though the images are still placed in formal arrangements, these arrangements are less rigid and a little quirky. In Love and Affection, orange striped clown fish, graduated in size from small to large, swim amongst eels and moths to form a lattice pattern. The size variation of the fish and the shift away from a solely frontal point of view, introduce an odd, three-dimensional effect to create the illusion that they are swimming in and out of an intricately woven screen.

The painting XY pushes Snead's use of camouflage and illusion, and raises new conceptual questions: is XY a chromosomal reference? A Y-shaped troop of frogs, each displaying different patterning and coloration, moves along a tracery of black spiders legs and brightly colored shapes. Meanwhile, three X shaped arrangements of trout seem to pulse towards the foreground. XY's geometric background anchors the painting, but it also becomes an environment into which the frogs begin to blend, each using its unique physical traits as camouflage.

Ben Snead lives and works in Brooklyn. He exhibits his work at Feature Inc., New York, NY as well as throughout the United States and in Canada. His work was included in the Fourth Annual Altoids Curiously Strong Collection that was exhibited at O·H+T and Clifford-Smith Galleries in 2002, with stops in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. This is his second one-person exhibition at O·H+T.