Paul Snell

Trace # 201902 (Abstract photography)

2019

Paul Snell combines traditional and digital techniques to explore the possibilities of abstraction and minimalism in contemporary photo-media. Snell earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania in 1989, his BFA (Honors) from the University of Tasmania in 1995, and his Masters of Contemporary Arts from the University of Tasmania in 2011. Snell has exhibited his work extensively throughout Australia and Tasmania, and selectively in the United States. His work is included in numerous public and private collections, including that of ArtBank, the Devonport Regional Gallery, the Burnie Regional Gallery, and the Justin House Museum. Snell creates small production runs, printing each unique work in an edition of one to three. His process begins by capturing a location or an object on film with a traditional camera. He then digitally “decodes” the visual information present in that image. After reducing and simplifying the colors and forms, he begins an intensive “re-coding” process, during which the reduced formal elements of the work evolve their own self-referential relationships within a new composition. This process blurs the boundary between “taking” and “making” a photograph. When the digital composition is complete, Snell converts it into a Chromogenic print using the Lambda printing system, which allows luminous, vibrant, colorful photographic printing onto metallic paper. The print is then mounted onto Plexiglass.