Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness

Nancy Snooks (b. 1938) is an international printmaker and was professor of printmaking and art history at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA. She received her art education under Sister Corita Kent at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles and her MFA in printmaking from the University of Southern California. Throughout her life, Snooks as explored a variety of aesthetics within the abstract and expressionist genres, but has kept her content primarily focused on religious subjects.

Nancy Snooks has been awarded recognition by The Guild of Religious Architecture for her series of etchings on The Way of the Cross, and images of her work have appeared in videos such as Christ Images (1985) and Christ of 1,000 Faces (1984) and in the magazine Faith and Form. Her print series, The Book of Revelation, was shown at the Carnegie Art Museum (1999) and California Lutheran University (2000). Her Odyssey etching was shown in the Bread Upon the Waters exhibit at Yale University, Baylor University, Wheaton College, and other locations. In 2005, The Third Fall was used by CIVA (Christians in Visual Arts) as part of the Christ’s Way of the Cross exhibit. Her Pieta etching is in the Vatican Modern Art Collection.

This series on Revelation began when Nancy Snooks was still a graduate student and took thirty years to finish. The images were designed as studies for metal lithographic plates, and they were left that way because of their freshness. Snooks then used a multimedia process incorporating collage, photocopying, and drawing using charcoal, pencil, felt pen, and colored pencils. Snooks began this series as an expression of feelings of fear, grief, and anger, as well as a projection of nightmares. According to Snooks, what sustained the intensity of the work was a desire to understand the nature of the “new heaven and the new earth” and hope for the future.