Zoe Snape is a multidisciplinary artist, working across art, science and mental health to engage audiences with themes of wellbeing and environmental awareness. Transience is central to her work, which examines psychological resilience. She works in painting, digital art, bio art, and assemblage with experimental materials ranging from mycelium, yeast, sea foam and bubbles, to the more traditional mediums of watercolour, gouache, acrylic and oil paints. She works between her large studio at the East Quay art centre in Watchet, and her home studio in Minehead. Zoe is a Somerset Art Works member and part of the HATCH collective based in Langport, offering viewers new ways to experience contemporary art in rural environments. She has a BA (Hons) in Fine Art & Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has exhibited in Portugal, London, Sheffield and Somerset.
Zoe is the Exhibitions Coordinator at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, and is a specialist in fine art photography, with a fifteen-year-long career working in galleries and auction houses, such as Christie's, Bloomsbury Auctions and The Photographers' Gallery in London. Most recently she completed Artist Residencies at Musgrove Park Hospital and a year-long placement at the laboratory Singer Instruments, for which she received the Somerset Art Works 2024 micro-commission to curate an exhibition of her bio art featuring Petri dish sculptures, window art and photography. These roles demonstrate Zoe’s ability to engage diverse audiences with challenging scientific concepts through optimistic, hopeful work that is experimental, visceral, and therapeutic.
2025
May
Alongside my studio practice, I will be taking on the role of Art For Life Exhibition Coordinator to support their programme to enhance the healthcare environment for the benefit of patients and staff by bringing a range of high quality artworks to the Trust's two acute sites; Musgrove Park Hospital and Yeovil District Hospital, working with the team to coordinate a programme of temporary exhibitions.
March
Thinking Inside The Box
HATCH, Langport
15/03/25 - 30/03/25 
February - March
Artist in Residence
Acorn Paediatric Ward, Musgrove Park Hospital, Parkfield Drive, Taunton, TA1 5DA.
February 2025.
2024
November
I'm delighted to have been selected to work on The Freelands Foundation Creative Teacher Network at East Quay. I will be working alongside Teachers and Artists to explore the principles of teaching as artistic practice and creativity as a method of wellbeing.
October
My artwork, 'Three Babies' originally created for an exhibition at HATCH, was exhibited in a group show in Portugal:
September
SINGER INSTRUMENTS
ARTISTS RESIDENCY 2024
Thoughts on the residency from Harry Singer, CEO:
"I had the pleasure of working with Zoe during her artist residency at Singer Instruments, and she was an absolute joy to collaborate with. Full of energy and curiosity, she embraced the challenge of working with scientific tools, learning incredibly fast and adapting to a completely new medium with impressive skill. She engaged effortlessly with our team—scientists, engineers, and researchers alike—bringing creativity, enthusiasm, and a fresh perspective to our work. Not only was she well-organised, but she also approached each experiment with determination and resilience.
The impact of these efforts has been profound:
🎯 It’s the single most powerful thing we’ve ever done to promote STEM.
🎯 It’s the single most powerful thing we’ve ever done to highlight the power of biology as a tool to tackle the climate crisis.
🎯 It’s the single most effective thing we’ve ever done to promote Singer Instruments as a cool place to work.
🎯 It’s been an amazing way to showcase and promote our new product, ColonyCam!
And now, thanks to Zoe, our walls at The Lab are covered in bioart, surrounding us with colourful biology as a permanent source of inspiration—a daily reminder of the importance of biological research and its real-world impact.
I would jump at the opportunity to work with Zoe again, and I highly recommend her for any future collaborations."
- Harry Singer, CEO
Singer Instruments Bio Art Exhibition Opening
LANDSCAPE (RE) VIEW II OPENS AT BREWHOUSE THEATRE TAUNTON
"Care" and "Repair" centre right.
I’m presenting an extension of a series that I began during convalescence after an operation at Musgrove Hospital this January. The reliefs are symbolic of the connection between individual (bubble) and community (foam), and an artist’s instinct to connect with others. Art history presents the bubble as a symbol of fragility and the fleeting nature of human existence.
July
Artworks to the right of Zoe exhibited on The Wall at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton. My bubble prints are created using a delicate method of printing and painting. I have invented a procedure that applies meditative breathing techniques to blowing bubbles onto the surface of paper in a controlled manner until they rest upon the surface for over a minute, before popping, to leave the bubble’s print and foam upon the surface. This contemplative technique allows me to explore my internal transient landscape, by controlling my breath and slowing my heartbeat while experiencing flow. Once dry, I then paint connecting lines by hand between the bubbles, guided by the natural patterns of the foam and instinct. I’m presenting a series that I began during convalescence after an operation at Musgrove Hospital this January, but upon reflection also related to an asthma-related admission to the hospital as a teenager. The paintings are symbolic of the connection between individual (bubble) and community (foam), re-connecting with nature in the Somerset landscape, and how we mend physically, psychologically and socially.
June
ARTIST TALK AT EAST QUAY
SAW MICRO-COMMISSION 2024
I'm delighted to have been awarded the 2024 SAW Micro-Commission to create a new body of work during my Artist Residency at Singer Instruments Lab in Minehead, Somerset.
Bio Art is a method of making art that involves the artist working with biology, live tissues, bacteria, living organisms and life processes. Singer Instruments in Minehead make robotics to accelerate research for biologists making the world a cleaner, greener, healthier place. Their global customer base are harnessing nature, engineering new microbial organisms to tackle some of humanity's greatest challenges.
Singer Instruments use Bio Art to engage with the public and help build understanding and confidence around synthetic biology. I have been appointed to be their Artist in Residence this summer, to create artwork and curate a group exhibition by artists and scientists exploring Bio Art, such as Finnish Artist Johanna Rotko and Brazilian Lab, Microbioworld.
I am working with Harry Singer, CEO of Singer Instruments who partnered me with scientist Fiona Kemm to make artwork using their laboratory. Responding to the Somerset Art Weeks festival theme of "Flux and Flow", I will examine my relationship with the land, sea, environment and local landscape, by drawing inspiration from the English Romantic artist J.M.W. Turner's observations of Minehead in his 'Somerset and North Devon Sketchbook', from 1811.
Expect to see my interpretation of J.M.W. Turner's landscapes grown from yeast in Petri dishes, E coli spin-art photography, mycelium-inspired photomontages and digital artworks.
Open throughout Somerset Art Weeks 10am -3pm
Thursday - Sunday
Saturday 21st September - Sunday 6th October 2024
FREE
Visit Zoe's studio to see the new body of work evolve or follow on social media: @zoe.snape.artist
'Minehead Beach After J.M.W. Turner' 2024.
Drawing in yeast growing on agar with a bubble in a Petri dish at Singer Lab, Minehead.
May - June
Pop-Up Exhibition at Musgrove Hospital
Pop-up exhibition in the Musgrove Gallery at Musgrove Park Hospital. In partnership with South West Heritage Trust and artist Zoe Snape in the Hospital's Paediatric inpatients wards. The project was delivered in March and April with children and their families and carers exploring the work of Alexander Hollweg. Children created colourful block puzzles to keep. The exhibition shows their work and some original Artworks by Zoe Snape and Alexander Hollweg which are on loan from South West Heritage Trust.
Anti-Aphrodite, Film Still.
1 minute 38 second loop, filmed on location at St Audrie’s Bay, Somerset. May 7th 2024 for VOID exhibition at Hatch, Langport.
April
EAST QUAY Performance
8:30pm Saturday 13th April 2024
Performing as Aphrodite in wearable art costume. Photograph © Rob Young
“Aphrodite was known as the goddess of beauty and love.
After the Apocalypse, she re-remanifested with strength and self-love rather than vanity as her beauty.
She was born from the foam of the severed genitals of Uranus after his son, Cronus, threw them into the sea.
Aphrodite returned to earth to stamp out misogyny and celebrate a new, powerful, honest, femininity…”
Zoe Snape, Anti-Aphrodite, 2024
HATCH FASHION SHOW
5pm Sunday 7th April 2024
March
Artist in Residence
Oak Children's Ward, Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, Somerset.
The Museum Of Somerset appointed me as Artist In Residence during March, for the Oak Children's Ward at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset.
I was invited to find inspiration in their current exhibition, ‘Journeys In Art by Alexander Hollweg’ to make art workshops for children receiving treatment at the hospital.
Kindly supported by Arts Council England and South West Heritage Trust.
FOUND & GROUND
Delighted that my artwork was selected to travel from Musgrove Park for exhibition at Yeovil Hospital, Higher Kingston, Yeovil, BA21 4AT
23rd April - 2nd September 2024.
Musgrove Gallery, Taunton
10th January - 2nd April 2023.
As an asthmatic, I’m interested in the use of breathing techniques to manage challenging psychological states. Such states could be the fear of deep cold open water, or panic in the face of the Climate Crisis. Diaphragmatic, Counted, and Visualised Breathing management is known to slow one’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and help to release tension by increasing oxygen. These techniques are proven strategies to help relieve anxiety and stress.
I’ve applied such breathing techniques to the blowing of measured bubbles prints made from acrylics and detergent. With practise and meditative focus, I’m creating a visual language that conveys a sense of control and calm in the context of chaos.
Carefully blown bubble prints emerge from sea foam impressions taken directly from the high tide at Minehead beach. The turbulent force of relentless crashing waves tumble towards the viewer as they move from left to right of the collage. A rhythm begins to transform the torrent into regulated blown bubbles. Like an inversion of Hokusai’s Great Wave, the visual pace is slowed, the tension dispersed, the chaos calmed.
With breath, we can reach mental strength. With calm, we can temper anxiety.
2023
DEATH & MICROWAVES EXHIBITION
HATCH, Langport
27th October - 12th November
Installation shot of "The Physical Impossibility of Living in the Mind of Someone Dead", 2023
Microwave, broken television, cabinets, fridge, reclining armchair, travel magazines, advertising literature, recording of ‘This Morning’ ITV1, Monday 5th June 2023.
September 2023
OPEN STUDIO
Somerset Art Works Back cover feature
September 2023
GROUP EXHIBITION - BEHIND THE SCENES
Taunton Brewhouse
Dates: Friday 8 September to Monday 30 October
Behind the Scenes runs with the theme of Somerset Open Studios, looking at artist’ processes and practice, featuring a selection of artworks which surveys the breadth of work produced by Somerset Art Works members and the terrain in which Somerset artists now find themselves.
The work will have a sense of change or evolution reflecting the dynamic and profound processes which have affected artist’s practice at this time, accompanied by personal artist statements which provide a unique insight into their thoughts and ideas.
MINEHEAD BAY FESTIVAL LIVE STREET ART PAINTING 
@zoesnapeartistMy live Street Art for Minehead Bay Festival 2023 #streetart #liveart #festival #minehead #somerset #spray #girlswhospray #exmoor #artist #sprayartistry #beaching #beachlifestyle #beach #beachvibe
♬ original sound - zoesnapeartist
GROUP EXHIBITION
Out Of The Box - Celebrating 10 Years Of Contains Art, East Quay, Watchet, Somerset
1st - 30th July 2023
"Expansion", 2023 - Out Of The Box
Swimmers series featured in Exmoor magazine, summer issue 103:
In-Between, Open Studios, Studio 7, East Quay, Watchet, Somerset
6th - 14th May 2023
PERFORMANCE
Bubble Woman, HATCH The Last Party In The World, East Quay
15th April 2023
The Emergence Of Bubble Woman
'It had happened before,
during the Covid Pandemic of 2020.
We were told to stay in our bubbles,
while they
Broke The Rules.
But this time,
when they instructed us to socialise in bubbles,
We refused
We rebelled
We revolted
We would not gather in bubbles.
Instead,
we atomised ourselves.
We
Became
Bubbles'
-Zoe Snape, Bubble Woman, 2023
Photography: Rod Higginson
GROUP EXHIBITION
The Titan Arcadia Gallery, Unit 5, The Quay, Coal Orchard, Taunton, TA1 1FB.
April - May 2023
Airhead, 2022, oil on canvas (SOLD)
Drifter, 2022, oil on canvas (SOLD)
November 2022
'Sanctuary' Somerset Art Works, Ilminster Arts Centre, 35 East Street,TA19 0AN
1st - 26th November 2022
September 2022
May 2022 
April 2022
I'm delighted that my companion artwork that was included in this group exhibition has been sold, and is now in a private collection.
January 2022
Are You Local?
When I moved into my studio in September 2021, the most common question that I was asked by visitors was, 'Are you local?'. This unexpected question led me to think about the characteristic of 'local', and at what point do we become associated with a location?
Turning the question back to the public, I asked on my studio window, 'Are YOU local?' and in order to better get to know my local community, I offered free portrait sittings for anyone who has ever lived or worked in Watchet.
December 2021
My publication 2020 is now sold out. The book included a signed limited edition print on 300gsm archival paper.
At the beginning of 2020, I was looking for a subject to provoke daily creativity, and turned to the headlines of the BBC News App for inspiration. Every day for a year I committed to publishing on Instagram my creative response to the top headline that appeared when I opened the app. This book presents the art project as it unfolded, along with the unforgettable events that led to the tumultuous spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The publication chronicles the disaster as it happened, through daily photographs, videos, paintings, drawings, sketches and illustrations. Each image is accompanied by text that details the date and BBC headline, alongside hashtags that described the events of each day.
A foreword is written by Camilla Brown, curator, writer and educator on contemporary art, previously Senior Curator at The Photographer’s Gallery and Exhibitions Curator at Tate Liverpool.
Title: 2020
Author: Zoe Snape
Self-published
Hardback, 100 pages, full colour, 30x30cm.
Retail Price £40
ISBN 978-1-3999-0932-7
First printing edition 2021
A full-colour hardback book
The copies sold included a signed limited edition print on 300gsm archival paper.
All content â“’ Zoe Snape 2025. All rights reserved. Any unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting are prohibited and will constitute an infringement of copyright.