Kara Ruth Snyder

 

BA, Philosophy  and Art History, Duquesne University, 1990.  Associate's Degree, Computer Animation and Multimedia, The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, 1995.  Studied under the guidance of many well-known Pittsburgh artists, most notably:  William DeBernardi, Pat Barefoot, Ron Donoughe, Linda Wallen, Robert Robinson, Elizabeth Castonguay and Patrick Daugherty.  Multiple courses in Figure Drawing and Painting, Pastel Painting, Landscape Painting and Abstract Art at both Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh and The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.  Nine years experience as an Arts Administrator, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Private instructor in Drawing and Cartooning, and Painting for Children of all ages. 

 

I am a visually impaired expressionist painter.  I primarily work in an abstract style which frequently carries over into my treatment of figure and landscape as well.  My favored media are acrylics, charcoal, ink and pastel, as well as textural elements like sand, pumice and wax.  I love to paint big.  What is most important to me in my work is the action part of the mark-making process.  I never get too attached to how anything looks.  I just keep interacting with the pigment by working into the surface with brushes, palette knives, fingernails, etc. until it "speaks" to me and then I stop.  Being a visually impaired artist (I am blind in one eye and legally blind in the other since 2003) certainly has freed me up in the realm of "non-attachment to visual outcomes".  I have found this to only help me in my work  Presently my focus is on abstract art, however, I still enjoy working from a live model or a landscape from time to time.  

 

 

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