Nelson artist goes global

A Nelson artist says she could never have made it as a professional artist without having an online community.

Alice Snow makes art that is a bit different to what others might expect. She describes her style as cartoony, colorful, and “very weird”, and says “it can be inappropriate sometimes”.

As her art is unique, featuring anthropomorphised foods and objects, colourful bugs with funky faces and people with toothbrushes as hair, people react differently to her pieces.

“You get a lot of people who are shocked, you get a lot of people who laugh, it depends on the piece,” Alice explains.

While loving art since kindergarten, it wasn’t until high school that she started to take it more seriously.

“I got to design a kids’ schoolbook, which was like a picture book with fairies, and I think that’s how I got into the style of a bit more cartoony and it felt a lot more creative to me,” Alice says.

Her inspiration comes from things she sees in daily life and believes are interesting. But something that always brings her inspiration is the book  ‘The Cabinet of Natural Curiosities’ by Albertus Seba, which had a lot of influence on her artwork in general.

While her art has been sold all over the world, a piece about gastroschisis she created as part of a series on children with rare conditions that ended up in a hospital in the United States is her favourite location, she says.

“I wanted to normalise it a bit, and a hospital in the states that specialises in treating children with this condition bought it and hung it up in their hospital.”

Some of her art is currently displayed in Nelson at the Free House and Godzillas and in Wellington at Bizarre Bazaar, but most of her artwork sells online. The majority of her art goes overseas, mostly to the United States and especially California. Only a small percentage of the sales are made in New Zealand.

Alice says she is only able to make a living because of platforms like Etsy, a website where artists and crafty people can sell their handmade works online. She believes that relying solely on Nelson’s sales would make it impossible for her to be a professional artist, especially with her unconventional style.

“I am really lucky that I can make a living here, but it is hard sometimes,” she says.

“I find it kind of hard to get your foot in the door with galleries and Nelson locals.”

She wishes that the art scene in Nelson could be a bit more diverse and have a bigger range and directions of art.

“There needs to be more diversity and more things happening, like more support for artists.”

In the future, Alice says her goal is to have a solo exhibition at a gallery, in a bigger city, or maybe even overseas.

By Alexandra Konitz

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