A


Story by PETEr DuGrÉ


nimals have captured artists’ imaginations since charcoal on cave wall was the medium of choice. Kim Snyder, a successful, sought-after Carpinteria artist, says what attracts her to creatures in the wild is the personality of each subject. She’s been called an animal portraitist. Many of her works are close up images of sea birds, frozen in the moment they are taking flight or landing, framed by the pale blue background of the ocean sky or reeds of marsh grass. The figure, expression, and movement of the animal dominate the scene. “They’re just little creatures living their lives,” she says.


Snyder’s latest subject— maybe obsession—is the wild horse, a powerful, untamed specimen that has a tremen-


dous backstory of intercontinental immigration and displacement. The current plight of wild horses in the United States—they’re being captured and killed— combined with the awe-inducing stature of the animal on the open landscape fascinate her artistic eye.


or canvas.


Wildness begets untamed beauty. “They’re not groomed,” Snyder says of the wisps of mane and tail that splay from the horses’ bodies and curl into the landscape. “They’re a part of our world, not a pet.”


OPPOSITE PAGE, Freedom of “Return to Freedom” oil on board, 5”x7” at Chalk Gallery in Carpinteria. Freedom spot ted another stallion getting too close to his herd. The two boys met and came to a peaceful understanding.


ABOVE, “Carpinteria Salt Marsh,” oil linen 8”x10” at Kathryne Designs Inc. Painted at the dirt road inside the Estero Way entrance.


WINTER2012 51


To encounter wild horses, Snyder frequents Return to Freedom, a horse-rescue operation outside of Lom- poc that houses around 200 wild horses on a sprawl- ing ranch, where they roam in large open areas but are technically no longer wild. Snyder walks among the horses and photographs and sketches them, a daring endeavor among unpredict- able herds.


She waits for moments that produce “interesting shadows,” preferably in the faint glow of morning or the orange gleam of a falling sun. Then in her home stu- dio, Chaparral Design Studio in Carpinteria, she builds paintings in layers, starting from a dark background and adding details, usually in acrylic, oil, or pastel on linen


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92