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Painter shows work at WHS artist event

Published January 26. 2022 09:20AM
by CHRISTINA SANTO Special to The Press

Local expressionist painter Elizabeth Snelling presented her work at an artist’s talk at Whitehall High School Dec. 9, 2021. Some of her pieces were available to be seen in the Zephyr Art Gallery throughout November and December 2021.

Her work mainly features inanimate objects (still life), such as vases, rugs, bowls, plates and flowers. Her portfolio also features portrait paintings of both people and animals. More recently, she has started dabbling in landscape paintings. Many of her works feature textiles and patterns as well.

During her talk, she explained much of her work focuses on color and simplicity, rather than small details and perfection. In one painting called “Window Sill in Dalwhinnie,” Snelling discussed exactly those features with the bowl painted at the edge of the canvas.

Snelling received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Mount Holyoke College in 1979 and went on to study etching at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan, painting at the Art Students League and printing at the Philadelphia College of Science and Textiles.

She has also studied weaving with author and weaver Peggy Osterkamp and continued to hone the craft in the early 1990s with the Friends of Finnish Handicrafts.

Snelling’s work has been shown in venues across the Lehigh Valley and New Jersey, including the Ahlum Gallery, J. Lima Gallery, Ambre Studio and Riverbanks Arts.

This piece, which features varying levels of abstraction, was on display in the WHS art gallery throughout November and December 2021. Artist Elizabeth Snelling's self-proclaimed love of things, mainly vases and rugs, lends itself to much of her subject matter, which comes from her house.
Color and simplicity, two of Snelling's focuses in art, are shown with this painting of a jug and a rug with a plate on top. While answering a question from a student, she said there was another painting underneath this one, something she does quite frequently.
During an artist's talk Dec. 9, 2021, at Whitehall High School, Snelling points out an area in a painting where the base color peeks through. Like another of her paintings, this work had been through two other iterations. Typically, her works are done as a whole; however, in this one, the cloud was added after Snelling decided she didn't like the sky.
Snelling stands next to a painting called “Window Sill in Dalwhinnie,” completed in 2019. “One of the things I've learned to do over time is to not be so concerned that every line is where it should be,” she said, when discussing different people's perspectives of the bowl in the bottom corner.
PRESS PHOTOS BY CHRISTINA SANTO This painting, called “Washing,” is one of Snelling's favorite pieces. It was completed in 2020 and took almost five years to complete.