Hills Snyder: Altered States (Part Four)

Ruiz-Healy Art is pleased to present its first solo-exhibition for the work of Hills Snyder, Altered States (Part Four), an ongoing visual project and written series by the Texas-based artist. The exhibit features 120 drawings, based on photographs gathered in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Kansas, and South Dakota.

As stated by Snyder, his travels follow a line that “goes through towns selected by virtue of their names—not because they are odd or funny, but because they are evocative—emotional states, hoped for ideals, downers, and reckonings…” Nowhere, Happy, Bonanza, Lost Springs, Recluse, Keystone, Consequences, Eldorado, and Waterloo, are among the places visited by the artist.

His explorations began in May of 2016 as a meditation on subjectivity, autonomy, independence, and place. Snyder elaborates, “I’ve visited out of the way places in the country, randomly running across found beauties, overlooked events, discarded things, back roads—anything happening outside the frame of relevance and other assumptions of importance.” This body of work is part of a series of travelogue stories Snyder continues to write for Glasstire in conjunction with this multi-part exhibition series. All titled Altered States, this is the fourth rendition that contains new work building on the complex sequence. The expanding project will venture out of Texas in 2019 and will include further destinations: Hope, AR; Defeated, TN; Arcadia, MO; Lost Nation, IA; Funk, NB, and Donnybrook, ND.

Hills Snyder is an artist, musician, writer, educator, and curator. He was born in Lubbock, Texas and has resided in San Antonio since 1992. Snyder’s artworks are found in public collections across the country including Ruby City, San Antonio, TX; Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, Wyoming; Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, Washington; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Montana Arts Council, Helena, Montana; Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX; and the Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX.

This exhibition will serve as a send-off for the artist who is moving in the coming months to Magdalena, New Mexico.

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