LONG RUNNER
26 February - 26 March 2022
Curated by Eva Chimento
Band of Vices Sacred House is thrilled to announce Long Runner, a solo exhibition by Atlanta based artist William Downs. The exhibition will offer a continued focus around his exploration of cultural empathy and the human experience. On view are large scale works on canvas alongside his signature works on paper. This exhibition marks Downs’ first with the Gallery.
Through his repetitive and focused process, Downs understands his work as an awakening of human experience that is objectified via visual representations of subjective feelings; anxiety, fear, angst, and lust are concepts that form through lines throughout his work. Truth, broadly, figures heavily in Downs' practice, especially within the context of an emotional spectrum.
As Downs has observed, “I find pleasure in admiring and studying human behavior. Drawing while traveling, from everyday life and everyday dreams, [to] keeping a visual record of the interactions I observe between others and within my own psychology.” Although his process builds upon formal figurations through this signature drawing technique; conceptually, the work aims to expose the surrealist elements of living. Downs has observed, “I cannot count how many times during the day I get lost in my own magic viewfinder of memory reels.”
Long Runner ultimately offers up a visual landscape where the eye and mind of the viewer can play between the spaces of consciousness, physical matter, and psychic memory. It is within this experience that Downs rebuilds the vulnerability in his subjects through the layering of lines, and by constructing landscapes of meaning that are more infinite than the drawings themselves.
