Natascha Snellman of Play It As It Lays
JOHN MOTLEY ON NATASCHA SNELLMAN
Natascha Snellman’s sculptures and two-dimensional work, which are largely predicated on appropriation, reflect this ravenous kind of looking. The work often employs materials related to zoos and animals (cages, python skin, and the faces of snarling jungle cats), but, like a python, it also swallows images whole, from photographs of celebrity sex symbols...to similarly familiar forms, ideas, and figures throughout twentieth century art history. This approach is like a collagist’s, in which the disjointed stimuli of the world are resuscitated through composition and context. Yet Snellman’s synthesis of captive animals, sexualized female celebrities, and Modernism’s mostly male legacy create a stage to address how the objectifying gaze defines us as subjects.
Natascha Snellman was raised in Amsterdam, Seattle & Portland. She holds a BFA from Pacific NW college of Art and an MFA from Art Center College of Design. Natascha has worked for artists such as Diana Thater, T Kelly Mason, Bruce Weber and Mark Borthwick. Snellman recently had a solo exhibition entitles "Face to Facade" at Fourteen30 Contemporaty in Portland. She is currently in Los Angeles, "Play It As It Lays" at Space 15 Twenty, Standard Deviation at See-Line Gallery, and PALS at Actual Size Gallery. Natascha lives and works in Los Angeles.
Natascha Snellman’s sculptures and two-dimensional work, which are largely predicated on appropriation, reflect this ravenous kind of looking. The work often employs materials related to zoos and animals (cages, python skin, and the faces of snarling jungle cats), but, like a python, it also swallows images whole, from photographs of celebrity sex symbols...to similarly familiar forms, ideas, and figures throughout twentieth century art history. This approach is like a collagist’s, in which the disjointed stimuli of the world are resuscitated through composition and context. Yet Snellman’s synthesis of captive animals, sexualized female celebrities, and Modernism’s mostly male legacy create a stage to address how the objectifying gaze defines us as subjects.
Natascha Snellman was raised in Amsterdam, Seattle & Portland. She holds a BFA from Pacific NW college of Art and an MFA from Art Center College of Design. Natascha has worked for artists such as Diana Thater, T Kelly Mason, Bruce Weber and Mark Borthwick. Snellman recently had a solo exhibition entitles "Face to Facade" at Fourteen30 Contemporaty in Portland. She is currently in Los Angeles, "Play It As It Lays" at Space 15 Twenty, Standard Deviation at See-Line Gallery, and PALS at Actual Size Gallery. Natascha lives and works in Los Angeles.
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Play It As It Lays will be on display through December 12th. Email gallery@space15twenty.com for more information. 
