In “Snail Drawings,” Daniel Ranalli Finds Beauty in the Slow and Slippery

Snails are not often the subjects of fine art; artists who depict the natural world are typically drawn to nobler, or at least less slimy, species. But for Daniel Ranalli, a photographer and environmental artist whose work is currently on display at LaMontagne Gallery in South Boston, these unassuming gastropods are not only worthy artistic subjects, but also creative collaborators.  The show, “Snail Drawings,” consists of a collection of photographic diptychs that depict the movement of snails on a beach. In the first image of each set, we see the snails in the careful configuration in which they have been placed by the artist; in the second image, taken twenty to thirty minutes later, the snails have crawled out of their original formation, leaving trails imprinted on the sand behind them. The photographs are small—each individual picture is about a square foot—and shot in black and white. They span several decades: Ranalli first came up with the idea for the series thirty years ago, while taking pictures of snail tracks on Cape Cod beaches at low tide. Soon, he began to arrange the snails himself, influencing—though not controlling—his subjects’ movements. “I am like a choreographer,” he says in a quote in the show’s press release, “whose dancers pay me no attention.”

Ranalli arranges the snails, for the most part, in geometric formations: a triangle, a spiral, an infinity symbol, a line. (Sometimes he adds another object, like kelp or a stone, to the configuration—perhaps merely for aesthetic purposes, or perhaps to influence the snails’ paths.) In one image, aptly titled Chaos Theory #2, the snails spell out the word “CHAOS” in capital letters. In the corresponding “after” photograph, the letters dissolve as the snails embark on their own wayward journeys, some heading toward the top of the image’s frame, others toward the bottom, a few stragglers lingering behind in their original spots. “CHAOS” has dissolved into chaos; order has given way to disorder. Or has it?  The snails’ tracks might appear random at first glance, but a longer perusal reveals a certain pattern in their movements. None of the snails in Chaos Theory, for example, head toward the right side of the frame. And in the nearby Snail Drawing: Stone #3, which features a ring of snails around a rock, nearly all of the snails have turned back to the rock by the time the second photograph has been taken. If “Snail Drawings” is about the futility of human attempts to structure the world, it is also about the world’s inherent structure.

Indeed, the snail’s tracks have not just a certain order but also a certain beauty: they resemble, in their own way, the wandering linework of Brice Marden, or perhaps the abstract scrawls of Cy Twombly. Snails may not be the most inspiring artistic subjects, but “Snail Drawings” makes the case that they are endowed with a certain aesthetic sensibility. Or perhaps their movements simply reveal the beauty of nature’s own order—an order that encompasses disorder, that builds and unbuilds constantly.

“Snail Drawings” is on view through February 22, 2025, at LaMontagne Gallery, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA.