NADA New York 2023

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.

With the garden as a site for the investigation of mortality and clay as a material synonymous with the body, Snowden reinterprets historical imagery as a vehicle for understanding the temporal nature of our existence. The artist weaves together references to domestic spaces and gardens—including architecture, the body, plants, and a variety of imagined creatures—with specific rituals. With symbols of metamorphosis, growth, deterioration, and decay throughout, the artist presents existential imagery with mystery and humor.

Snowden shares, “I imagine possibilities within the relationships between the human, non-human and by extension non-living world to cultivate experiences that feel regenerative and playful, yet melancholic.”