Here is one person deserving greater recognition and support, Michael Snape. Forever it seems he has done his utmost to challenge you, confound you, reject you, frustrate you, impress you, dance around and tease you. It is serious now. The mature man arrives and claims the arena for himself. Desperate for success he remains outré, himself.
At Mori's in August 2004
You know the place, a cave
Its kindly kroll guardian keeper in the labyrinth making tea
An air of surprised disbelief, a country town quiet.
Massive sheets of slightly curving plate, standing up.
zussi barks of steel, raki of the urban tribe.
Steel is not for the easily entertained or those who accessorise with Aboriginal.
On further looking these were the Doric entrails served in Shiraz steel sauce. Avoiding the referent by becoming the referent. Words. Does he want us to read them? After decades of cubist word portraits, after so much practice, these were real results. Autobiography; a positive wounding. Suicide deferred by the modular. The deep crisis of mobile phone text.
Oxy table publishing. The ploughing of metal. A human dremel. A swordsman of space.
Flirting with Pop and bad taste these trophies of torch battle show that Snape had Matisse in his mother's milk and lined his stomach. Zeus! Can he draw. A measured frenzy.
Rich steel chocolate addiction with crane hole stigmata and tiny screw holes that work.
Off the wall which threatens the cage keepers of Art
These bad news items ARE walls
A purgative of the heart, memorable, proud.
How ravishing the material is made to be.
Bossy, rough, impersonal, and the sculpture at Mori's also.
Clear, light, heroic. Pure achievement. Glorious.
This I felt. This I affirm.