Artist Bio

Michael Snodgrass was born in St. Helena, California. With only one high school class in art Michael started painting street scenes and cityscapes. At the urging of his parents, he left the art world and did not return to it until the mid nineties while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

He became immersed in the Santa Fe art scene and developed a deep love of primitive, Native American, Mexican and African tribal art. After moving to the Monterey Bay Area in California, he started experimenting with his own primitive style, incorporating elements of abstract expressionism.
He explains his work as a take off on the religious icons painted in Mexico and New Mexico called Retablos. He refers to his art as irreverent Retablos or paintings that glorify the inglorious.
His fascination with scoundrels, chicken thieves, river rats and art critics is evident throughout his work.

"When I returned to the art world after many years of doing life, I determined to create a body of work that reflected my interest in primitive art and abstract expressionism. I wasn’t moved by the artwork I saw around me, the pretty landscapes and still lifes. I sought to create a body of work that had meaning to me and allowed me to work in a very physical and emotional way.

I began by creating a series of “retablos for the inglorious.” Retablos are small devotional paintings done in folk art style, usually glorifying a single Saint or Virgin and using a limited amount of text to identify the subject. Mine were retablos glorifying such scoundrels as chicken thieves, cattle rustlers, horse thieves and art critics. I was taking a gentle poke at organized religion and modern day idolatry through the use of humor and my primitive figures. I have stayed pretty true to this vision and have always maintained a humorous subtext no matter how my style evolved or what the subject matter was.

The most common comment of my work that I hear is, that it looks like the work of Jean Michel Basquiat. While I find it very flattering to have my work compared to work that sells for millions of dollars, done by a genius and a titan of twentieth century art, I can’t agree. Basquiat was an urban Expressionist who used social commentary to attack power structures and systems of racism. His work revolved around single heroic figures: (Joe louis, Charlie Parker, Jersey Joe Walcott.) My work revolves around chicken thieves and one armed alligator tamers. The commentary in my work is humor and the beauty of the primitive figures I take delight in creating.

Basquiat was a superb draftsman as evidenced by the elaborately rendered figures and anatomical drawings found throughout his work. He was, after all, a graffiti artist and very much used to drawing with oil sticks, crayons and felt tip markers. I use paint that is slathered on, dripped on, splashed and carved into with sticks, tools and fingers. Hardly the elaborately rendered figures of Jean Michel Basquiat. I am an artist that paints primitive figures in a very crude and primitive way. I am happy painting the way that I do. As far as the people who think I paint like Basquiat, I would like to say, “Thank you, I’m very flattered.”

Michael Snodgrass

Carmel, California