JILL DOWNEN
Jill Downen (b. 1967) is a non-binary American artist based in Kansas City, who works in site-responsive installations, sculpture, and drawing. A critical event in their formative years, a lightning strike to the family home, imprinted a heightened awareness of the body, architecture, and temporality that would, in time, inform the core of their artistic practice. Their artwork invites people to slow down and heighten awareness of internal and external energies that undergird a contemporary culture in constant flux. The arc of their practice addresses these concerns through the symbiotic relationship between the human body and architecture - where both reside as indeterminate and temporal bodies.
Downen’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK; Rosenberg Gallery / Hofstra University, NY; Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN; Louisiana State University Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA; University of North Texas, Denton, TX; The Arsenal of Venice, Italy; and Artscape Commons, Toronto, Canada; amongst others. Their residencies include Art Omi: Artists, MASS MoCA, MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and Cité International des Arts residency in Paris, France. They are a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Stone and DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, and the Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artists Award. Downen is the Chair of Sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute.