Department of Art and Art History

Gilda Snowden Artist’s Lecture Thursday, November 7 at 5PM

Oakland University Art Gallery In conjunction with

Gilda Snowden – Album: A Retrospective 1977-2010

Self-Portrait, 1977, oil on canvas 26 x 20 inches

Collection of Dan Graschuck

Three Degrees” Antoinette and Gilda, 2010, photographs and encaustic on panel, 12 x 16 inches

Gilda Snowden – Album: A Retrospective, 1977-2010, looks back at a varied and impressive oeuvre, almost forty years in the making. It is also a reflection on Gilda Snowden’s extensive career and community presence as an artist, activist, teacher, peacemaker and doyenne of the visual arts in Detroit. Thirty-three works (paintings, drawings, reliefs, sculpture, encaustics and embedded photographs) create a compelling narrative from Snowden’s student days in the mid-seventies up to 2010, where she looks far back to her ancestral roots, bringing her work up to date with her present family. The artist states: The definition of painting is expanding and continually flexing its muscles. When I was in school I never thought that I would be using the media that I use now. It seems that the older I get, the more radical I am in my own visual practices. This is an outgrowth of my early experiences as a young artist in school, observations and immersion in the Cass Corridor community, and a constant study of art history. To be radical is required for forward progression.