Profile

Eric Snell, an artist with a career spanning over four decades, has consistently explored the intricate relationship between materials, processes, and the natural forces that surround us. From his earliest experimental Kite Drawings, through to his magnetic and burnt wood work right up to his Horizon and Common Blue Series, Snell has been interested in exploring how these elements cannot only collaborate to support, shape, and inform his work but he is also interested to see how these components can often dictate the outcome.

Central to Snell's artistic philosophy is the concept of the artist as a catalyst, a mediator who brings together disparate elements to create a visual as well as cerebral and physical balance – always looking for that inherent, self-determining "sense of rightness."

As an alumnus of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD and a past resident of the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, Snell in 2003 was awarded an Arts Council of England International Research Fellowship when he dug a virtual hole through to the other side of the world. A visiting guest professor at the Casper David Friedrich Institute, at the University of Greifswald in Germany Eric Snell is currently based in Wiltshire where he continues to push the boundaries of his artistic practice.

1953
Born, Guernsey, Channel Islands. GB

1972-73
One-Year Art Foundation Course, Birmingham Polytechnic, England

a

1972-76
BA Fine Art (1st Class Hons) Hornsey College of Art, London

1982
Guest Lecturer, Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Canada

1984
Guest Lecturer, Slade School of Art, University College, London

1985-86
Awarded the DAAD International Artist-in-Residence Fellowship
Lived and worked in Berlin, Germany

1996-88
Visiting Lecturer, Middlesex University, London

1988-92
Part-time Lecture, Adult Education Programme, Guernsey College

1991
Visiting Lecturer, École des Beaux Arts, Caen, France

1992
Awarded the Cité Internationale des Arts Scholarship
Lived and worked in Paris, France

1992-93
Associate Professor, École des Beaux Arts, Caen, France

1994-2008
Set up and headed the first School of Art and Design, Guernsey College

1995-2007
Co-founder/co-organiser of the International Artist in Residence Programme

1997
Royal Society of Arts, Civic Trust Award (for the design of the Liberation Monument)

1999-2000
Roswell Artist-in-Residence Programme
Lived and worked in New Mexico, USA

2002/3
Arts Council of England International Research Fellowship
Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
Lived and worked in Queensland, Australia

2004
Rootstein Hopkins Foundation Major Project Award

2005
Ambassador of the Year Award, Guernsey

2009-2015
Executive Founding Director, Art and Islands Foundation

• Museum of Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria
• Constructivist Collection, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England
• Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Gallery of Modern Art/Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia
• Bayer Collection, Stockholm, Sweden
• Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, Canada
• Agnes Etherington Arts Center, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
• Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles, USA
• National Collection for Contemporary Art, Paris, France
• Mendoza Foundation, Caracas, Venezuela
• Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, USA
• Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern, Germany
• Donald Anderson Museum, Roswell, New Mexico, USA
• Guernsey Museum, Guernsey, Channel Islands
• Peter C Ruppert Collection, Wurzburg Museum, Germany