Dashiell Snow died young, five years ago this July.  At 15, his artistic career began following the theft of a camera, which he used to take photos of people and places he was certain he would not remember the next morning.  This was because he had already begun to drink heavily, and after nights of drinking to the point of amnesia, Snow relied on the pictures he had taken to put back together the pieces of his wild and unsteady life.  One could say his existence and artistic expression were a never ending series of clipping for “next mornings.”

Snow had a rather bedraggled rock-star image that quickly earned him a mythic status in the art scene. Many people considered him to be only a spoiled, rich young man with a drug habit, an unlimited booze tap, and a camera, and that what he was doing was not really anything special, certainly not art.  Anyone with a camera to take photographs while drunk and make collages of them later to piece together the store of the night before.

Still, Snow also had a tremendous fan following.  Many more people did believe in his talent, and supported his works of art.  Many of his art works during a three year prolific period depict scenes of  sex, drug taking, and violence in a pretentious “artsy” world.  The photos, created with an eye towards documenting the highly decadent lifestyle young, cliquish artists in the New York City of that time, were acclaimed by some and criticized by others.

Dash Snow was a known heroin user.  Towards the end of his brief life, many believed that he had finally beaten his addiction.  This was, unfortunately, before he was found at Lafayette House in New York, dead of a drug overdose on July 13, 2006.

“He went to a detox centre in March and then everything was fine for about two months,” his grandmother said after his death. “As a human, Dash lived on the edge.”

Dash Snow was only 27 years old at the time of his death.  He left behind a partner, Jade Berreau, and one daughter of the couple, whom they named Secret Midnight Magic Nico.

Thank you to Roberto Clark, an art editor who likes to compare cable vs satellite, for this inspiring post on Dash Snow.