Feature Inc :: Ben Snead 28 January

Ben Snead continues to use frogs, fish, birds, snakes, and various insects as fodder for his paintings. previously the compositions were quite literal and often hinted at social constructs and amusing choreography, while the most recent paintings have a more abstracted eccentricity that includes partial disappearances into folds as in paper or windows, as in computers, mashings, and fragmentation. Two of my favorites are a heap of chopped-up purplish frogs against a black ground that looks rather like a car crash or the makings of a dinner, and a hilariously frightening talking head composed of swarming grasshoppers. There is as well a more classical and spacious arrangement of three stacked rows of three: nine grouper (a fish) heads, all but one oddball facing the same direction, that is a perfect opportunity to observe the wide range of superficial similarities and differences within a species. Same different; different same. There is no way that this fish talk cannot be flipped into the wealth that composes the range of human features.

In December 2009, Ben Snead’s commission by the Metropolitan Transit Authority was completed. It is in the departures and arrivals area, mezzanine level of the Jay St.- Borough Hall A-C-F station, towards the south end of the station.