For decades artist John Snyder has wanted to find a piece of paradise upon which to build a chapel. He recently purchased his “piece of Paradise” in northeast Iowa, and in his current exhibition at the North Dakota Museum of Art he explores the themes, signs and symbols of the spiritual quest exemplified by both Buddha and Jesus Christ. Through woodcuts, paintings, and sculpture Snyder considers the relationships between the ultimate truth and ourselves. In his Drawings from the Underground, the slave ship becomes symbolic of both the physical and spiritual journey into this realm—a passage recognized by the artist as his own voyage through a deep depression.