Glacier is that specific composition that illuminates robust forces at work in the wider geologic sphere.  Churning under the sculptor’s handcraft,  Snowden’s tactile technique shapes clay and marl and ores of bronze as they arise from the earth’s crust shaped by the natural forces of geologic compaction.  Arriving in the studio, the sculptor transforms the conceptual snowmass of clay and bronze into a glacier by mirroring nature in condensing sculptural material, compressing the design downward into a spike. The overall compositional form of Snowden’s bronze Glacier is influenced by the burden of its upper weighty regions, where such pressuring layers shaping natural glaciers are built of compacting ice.

 

Glacier is a poem composed of opposing figural polarities that conceptually create harmonic concordance by exerting downward pressure that promotes consolidation. The ultimate vision of Glacier is unity in fusion. In this bronze, figuration and the overall design are expressions of Snowden’s melding handwork that results in crystalized form.  Such clustering energy begins toward the apex of the composition, creating a veritable bouquet of crystal spikes in the wider topmost tier. Indeed, a range of phenomena including atmospheric, gravitational, chemical, and geologic pressures coalesce to create crystal formations in nature that become interpreted in the studio. Indeed,  the crystalline structure of earth mined sculptural mediums readily intuit and respond to Snowden’s compacting energies.

​

Sculpted crystals spike through the composition, formalizing and intensifying the overall “V” design of bronze Glacier. Energies transiting both downward and skyward find conduits in the dual figural icons that enhance the process of solidification that defines the rationale of the composition. Expressing dynamic polarities, Glacier is that unique composition wherein female and male icons reign over convergence. Here Snowden’s figuration is rounded with increased volume in conveying matched physical weights in both of the male and female icons, where Glacier’s meditation expresses unification as an on-going process.

​

Indeed, Glacier engages in active merging where such amalgamation is arrested momentarily in bronze. Yet, Snowden’s almost liquid handling of form and optical vacillating sculpting style creates a bronze surface that seems to move and morph. Indeed, under various lighting sources, nuanced forms become recessive or dominant optical arrangements that almost seem to change shape under the skin of the work’s platinum Fournier patina. With rainbow striations inhering in its anatomical passages, Glacier is a vibrant crystallization of the sculptor’s vision; a physical expression of the process of ongoing geological amalgamation and concordance.