Laura Josephine Snyder (b.1983, Charlottesville, VA) explores memory and cognition through visual abstraction and a material driven practice.

Referencing cartography, she inquires into the ways in which the signs and symbols found in our physical environment–from signal flags to the smell of rain–influence the movements of our minds and bodies. In her recent work, she employs symmetry as an instigator of contemplation. She is currently engaged in a study of natural pigments, their historical significance and their intrinsic reference to place.

Snyder’s master’s thesis, titled Rastros de Viaje: Alucinaciones Cartográficas y la Memoria como Palimpsesto (Traces of Journey: Cartographic Hallucinations and Memory as Palimpsest), 2011, considered map-making across cultures, and explored the ways in which artists have incorporated maps into their work in order to question assumed conventions and power structures–placing her own work within that context.

Snyder has shown her work nationally and internationally, including in Asheville, North Carlolina, Richmond, Virginia, Mexico City, Mexico, and Bogotá, Colombia. In 2024 she had solo exhibitions at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville and Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. She has a MFA from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (UNAM) and a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.