Graduate art student Astri Snodgrass explores memory and perception in her new show “Echo: Paintings by Astri Snodgrass,” which is on display at the Ferguson Center Art Gallery now through March 3.

For Snodgrass, a first-year graduate student from St. Charles, Ill., “Echo” will be her sixth solo art exhibition. The show displays her paintings, which create a new perception and awareness for the viewer.

“I look at my paintings as kind of a visual echo, because I use a lot of reflections and repeated images,” Snodgrass said.

The title of the show comes out of her theory behind her work, drawing from photographs and inspiration from windows and visual echoes.

“I work from photographs and manipulate the photographs in order to generate new images,” Snodgrass said. “I’m interested in windows as invisible barriers that simultaneously connect and divide two spaces. Windows facilitate looking through while at the same time looking back, creating a sense of ambiguity of space and allowing for the viewer to exist in two or more spaces at the same time. My work offers a skewed and multilayered perception much like a visual echo, creating an awareness of multiple spaces at once.”

Snodgrass, who studied studio art in Norway and Argentina before coming to the University, has wanted to be an artist for as long as she can remember.

“I was seriously interested in art throughout my childhood, through high school,” she said. “My parents encouraged me to express myself artistically from the very beginning. My mom is an art teacher, she teaches elementary art. So I was just kind of in that environment my whole life.”

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Even though this is only Snodgrass’s second semester at the University, she has had no problem becoming a part of the University’s art culture. She previously exhibited work at “You Can’t Hold Water: Works by Graduate Studio Artists” and the 28th West Alabama Juried Show, where she won honorable mention.

“Echo: Paintings by Astri Snodgrass” will be open every Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. until March 3. For more information on the exhibition, contact [email protected].

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