Marti Haykin and Marc Snyder: The Pandemic Show

StopWatch Gallery & Studio’s inaugural exhibition was The Pandemic Show featuring work by Marti Haykin and Marc Snyder. The Pandemic Show presented a series of charcoal drawings by Marti Haykin and mixed-media collages by Marc Snyder.  Both bodies of work were made during the pandemic, and reflect the concerns and conditions created by the coronavirus.  Marti’s 25 intensely observed drawings included 17 portraits and 8 still lives.  Her goal was to remind us that, as author Isabel Wilkerson observes, “we are all indeed one species, all interwoven, more alike than different, more interdependent on one another than we might otherwise want to believe”, particularly in this pandemic.  Marc’s work was an installation of collages mounted on wood, creating a thistle patch full of bees.  The base of the collages are woodcuts and linocuts depicting objects such as spark plugs, power lines, gas pumps, bullets, methane molecules and the always present coronavirus.  The bees and thistles are frantic and full of movement, but also on the brink of collapse. They create a contrast between hopeful vitality and the clutter of our short-sighted environmental decisions.

Marti Haykin originally trained as a printmaker at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, before pursuing her other passion, neurology.  After receiving her Master of Fine Arts Degree, she taught studio art and art appreciation at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, GA.  She earned her MD degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and completed her neurology residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital.  When she is not working as a neurohospitalist at Westmoreland and Latrobe Hospitals, she is addressing current social justice issues through her drawings, sculptures, and wearable art. 

Marc Snyder is a printmaker who also trained at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.  After receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree, he was an associate professor at Georgia College and State University, where he taught studio art and art history, served as the university art gallery director, and was the art editor for Arts & Letters, A Journal of Contemporary Culture.  In 2001, he embarked on his career as a freelance artist, widely exhibiting his work.  He has work in upcoming exhibitions this year including “Narratives of the Possible” in Laramie, WY and “Catalog” in Charlottesville, VA.  His current work explores environmental themes and our increasingly fragile relationship with the natural world.