Jill Downen American, b. 1967
Works
Overview
Jill Downen has received numerous awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and Cité International des Arts Residency in Paris. She has created site specific installations for museums such as American University Museum in Washington DC, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Great Rivers Biennial and its 10th Anniversary exhibition, Place is the Space. Downen has been invited to lecture about her work extensively, including the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Luce Irigaray Circle Philosophy Conference in New York. Her art has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Times and Bad at Sports. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA as a Danforth Scholar from Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts - Washington University in St. Louis. Jill Downen is an assistant professor of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Exhibitions
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Viewing Room (September-October 2024)
September 20 - November 9, 2024We invite you to explore the Viewing Room, where you will find a selection of artworks by the gallery’s artists. These artworks are not only beautiful and inspiring, but also...Read more -
OVERVIEW_2024
Summer Group Exhibition July 16 - September 7, 2024Read more -
Conflict Resolution
June 23 - August 18, 2023"Conflict Resolution", a group exhibition in the Project Room examines the dialogue between the extremes of light and darkness. The artists are James Austin Murray, Arny Nadler, Jill Downen, Lisa K. Blatt, Michael Byron, Judy Child and Bunny Burson.Read more
The artists in this exhibition use black and white colors to create contrast, harmony, tension, and balance in their works, reflecting on the complex and nuanced relationships between opposites. The exhibition explores how black and white can evoke different emotions, meanings, and associations, such as purity and sin, peace and war, life, and death. The exhibition also challenges the viewers to question their own perceptions and biases, and to appreciate the diversity and richness of the spectrum between black and white.
