Todd Snyder is our March Artist of the Month. He is a nationally recognized fine artist from East Peoria and has worked as a professional oil painter since 1986. Snyder earned an associate degree in commercial art from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in Denver, Colorado and has since lived in central Illinois.
The multitude of paintings Snyder produced throughout his career depict local urban landscapes and architecture in magical realist style reminiscent of the German New Objectivity painters of the early 20th century. He combines elements of surrealism with his subject matter to fashion his own style of “industrial surrealism” in all of his work.
According to Snyder, his paintings are synthesized productions of his imagination, which include a combination of heavy industrial machinery, cityscapes and images of his immediate surroundings. He aims to create ambiguity and tension in his illustrations in order to reflect the surreal nature of our world and leave the viewer with a fragmented, unresolved story about what they are seeing.
Since 1989, over 300 international, national and regional juried art exhibitions accepted Snyder’s works and he has received a number of notable awards, including Awards of Excellence 1993, ’95, ’04 at the national annual Galex exhibitions and the first place award in the River Meets the Rails – The Sequel exhibition in 2021 at the Galesburg Civic Art Center.
His work can be found in the collections of Heartland Community College in Bloomington, Blanden Art Museum in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, Bristol Art Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island, L.R. Nelson Corporation in Peoria, and private collections across the country.
To see Snyder’s work, visit the Illinois Art League.
