Steven Snyder’s About Face — The Journey to Female

There is perhaps no more traditional subject matter in fine art than the human figure. Naked, nude, or clothed, realistic or abstract — it seems we are endlessly fascinated by our own f lesh and faces. Steven Snyder started seriously pursuing painting 11 years ago, armed with a 1970s-era undergraduate degree in photography and some graphic design experience. The body was not a focus at first. Snyder worked on landscapes and played around with mixed media on wood. But then — around the time Snyder started thinking about transitioning from male to female — a new series of faces she was working on caught her friends’ attention. “They told me it was the best work I’d ever done,” Snyder said. It was 2015, and Caitlyn Jenner had become a beautiful woman in the public eye. Snyder, feeling reborn in the reflected glow of Jenner’s freedom, left a marriage in Denver and moved full-time to her second home in Santa Fe. At age sixty-six, when she began identifying and living as a woman, she turned her art into a vehicle for personal exploration and catharsis. The faces — vibrant acrylic on wood, often collaged in used cosmetic sponges — are on view at 7 Arts Gallery (125 Lincoln Ave., 505- 437-1107) in About Face — The Journey to Female, a solo show of Snyder’s work opening on Friday, Jan. 5, with a 5 p.m. reception.

The faces and figures in About Face have a “outsider” folk-art sensibility with elements of Cubism. Snyder’s people often have big, startled eyes that appear to have never blinked and indeterminate gender presentation, such as someone with a masculine face covered in makeup. Though many of the paintings are whimsical, some are dark. One of the themes Snyder has been grappling with is her growing understanding of the fear that comes along with being a woman. “Women grow up thinking about their safety on a daily basis because society has produced men who can be so predatory. And men don’t even have to think about this,” she said. “All my life, my friends were men and I never thought about any of this. Now all of my friends are women and I am learning what it means to have that fear.” — Jennifer Levin