Adjusting Our Focus

Sylvia Snowden is a visual artist and educator based in Washington, DC. Raised on the campus of Dillard University in New Orleans, she grew up surrounded by learning and creativity. Snowden’s parents, both educators, nurtured her artistic talent from an early age. She began painting at just four years old with a watercolor set given to her by her parents, who fully supported her artistic ambitions. Her mother, a lover of art and bright colors, filled their home with prints–she especially liked works from Picasso’s Blue Period. Snowden credits the colorful nature of her childhood home as inspiring her use of color in her art. She later attended Howard University, earning both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts. 

“Feelings are more important to me than anything else.”

Snowden’s paintings, both the figurative and the abstract, depict the human experience through themes of identity, race, and being Black in America. Rather than traditional portraiture, she uses bold forms and expressive colors to communicate deep emotion and struggles. Though she prefers oil paint, she taught herself to work with acrylic paint when her children objected to the smell of turpentine. Her signature style often incorporates impasto, the thick application of paint to add texture and movement to the image. In addition to her artistic practice, she has had a distinguished career in education, teaching at Howard, Cornell, and Yale, shaping future generations of artists.