Running writing

A Sydney-based sculptor, painter and poet, Michael Snape is best known for his lyrical screen-like sculptures in stainless steel. As with this sprightly laser-cut frieze, Snape’s silhouettes are often based on drawings of stylised human figures in motion. To some extent, these sequential motifs are reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering stop-motion photographs from the 1880s of naked figures running, leaping or wrestling for the camera. His public commissions in various Australian cities include a large-scale metal assemblage at Sydney’s Walsh Bay. Whether figurative or purely abstract in character, Snape’s sculpture is notable for its sense of calligraphic flow and rhythm – an attribute that can be seen in relation to his mother Margo Snape’s work as a calligrapher.