Gary Snyder

I earned my Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Tampa, Florida, concentrating on painting, drawing, and technical illustration. Later I added to my education to study drafting techniques and then completed my MBA in Logistics Engineering from Colorado Technical University. I implemented this knowledge to work in aerospace for a career, but still found time to paint, created hand-painted signs, and used art for projects in military defense and aircraft graphics planning.

I am mostly influenced by the 19th & 20th century movements of non-traditional to abstract, Impressionism, and now Contemporary Realism. I prefer to use contrasting colors to produce depth and hidden images, sometimes not planned, but complement each other to develop the feelings that grow from the paint on the canvas.

I create my art at my new home now in Cookeville, TN, after 7 years in my studio at Cottonwood Center for the Arts in Colorado Springs, CO. I paint with oils or acrylic paints to capture my ideas. My painting subjects come from a variety of places: untamed, natural, historical, and idealistic. I enjoy the openness of our nation’s open spaces, the coastal beaches I grew up in, experiences while learning to live off the land, and other places of ancient cultures, which taught me respect for the past and future. I spent years in the American West that is full of legends and history, a favorite subject of mine. My aim is to record these last relics and some species of animals before they are gone, especially sea turtles, one of the symbols of Indigenous clans of North America. Today the waters and lands are destroyed by over development, over- population, greed, ignorance, and man’s self-destructive tendencies…yet somehow Mother Nature reclaims herself over mankind's intent, and that is an underlying theme in my paintings. Like a favorite song, it can be fun with just my imagination running away with me.