Jill Downen: Here all is distance, there it was Breath

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JI LL DO W NE N

Here all is distance, there it was Breath

bruno david gallery

Jill Downen

Here all is distance, there it was Breath September 14 - October 26, 2019 Bruno David Gallery 7513 Forsyth Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63105, U.S.A. info@brunodavidgallery.com www.brunodavidgallery.com Owner/Director: Bruno L. David This catalogue was published in conjunction with the exhibition “Jill Downen: Here all is distance, there it was Breath” at Bruno David Gallery.

Editor: Bruno L. David Catalogue Designer: Lauren R. Mann and Zoe Duncan Designer Assistant: Claudia R. David Printed in USA All works courtesy of Jill Downen and Bruno David Gallery Photographs by Bruno David Gallery Cover image: Here all is distance, there it was Breath (Installation view-detail)

First Edition Copyright ©2019 Bruno David Gallery All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of Bruno David Gallery

CONTENTS

JILL DOWNEN’S DRAWINGS, HERE ALL IS DISTANCE, THERE IT WAS BREATH

BY ANNE GATSCHET

NOTES ON AN EXHIBITION: HERE ALL IS DISTANCE, THERE IT WAS BREATH

BY JOSÉ FAUS

AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID

CHECKLIST AND IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

BIOGRAPHY

JILL DOWNEN’S DRAWINGS, HERE ALL IS DISTANCE, THERE IT WAS BREATH

BY ANNE GATSCHET I was in the foyer of Bruno David Gallery with a friend, looking into the next room at Jill Downen’s new exhibition, Here all is distance, there it was Breath. Forty-two, page-sized drawings in three even rows crossed the space and quieted our commentary. We’ve come to know the steady intensity of Downen’s work, but these drawings, allied more directly with language, crossed the gallery’s air with their own mindful conversation and we had to listen as much as we looked.

Downen’s work is dedicated to the renewal of spatial meaning. As she distills acts of architecture in color, texture and form, she asks how spatial markers affect us. Her sculptural installations and drawings supply a margin to architectural principles — horizon, verticality, nearness, barrier — a margin from which we see the groundwork of the foundational art. This group of small format works, though, brings Downen’s deep marking of space directly into the categories of language. In a few, halting words, my friend and I agreed that Here all is distance, there it was Breath reveals how far-reaching her spatial vocabulary has become: then, the glyphs and inky, lapis lines stirred more insistently in the next room, and it made more sense for my friend and me to enter Downen’s conversation than to interrupt it with our own.

Invitation is a rule in Jill Downen’s work. Her drawings invite us into a new regard for space with formal attention to the distances we must cross to reach new perspective — tangible distances between colors and forms, and abstract ones in our memories of place and space. Downen has focused on invitation in her larger pieces, as well: Architectural Folly from a Future Place, a 2018 wall installed in Kansas City’s Swope Park, invites us to walk through it and to sit on it; and Three Dimensional Sketchbook of 2013 is a chest of labeled drawers that encourage us to look inside at the materials she uses in her studio. Downen, with her minimalist hospitality, always welcomes us to a renewal of perspective. In order to bring vision outside the measures of space to which we are accustomed; to draw us away from architectural history’s construction of truth; to question the hierarchy of space dominated by human self-image— to accomplish this remarkable invitation, the artist has crafted a singularly soft rhetoric conveyed in a uniquely bold language. Here all is distance, there it was Breath magnifies the linguistic potential inherent in drawing and sculpture, and deploys it for Downen’s invitation. When we accept, we enter a continuum of movement, an unfolding of spatiality, where all is distance.

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Downen’s persuasiveness shifts the purpose of rhetoric. The work does not convince us of an idea, but rather transforms our spatial awareness and hones movement. Architecture has continual influence on experience. An intimate sense of how it marks meaning allows us to choose our movement, interpret movement more freely and move past constructs of space that don’t serve such freedom. As barriers emerge and dissolve in Downen’s drawings, they evince the mutability of barriers in and around us. We become more aware of how we displace or welcome one another, how we move through spatial tension and conflict, and how we may rest in openness.

This is a rhetoric of renewal.

“There is no end to writing or drawing. Being born doesn’t end.”

—Hélène Cixous from Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing

The literary theorist Hélène Cixous writes at writing as an action in space, Downen draws ground or wall or interior, and we feel those and gilded volumes in this language, as they meanings of boundary and interior.

the juncture of drawing and writing. Like Cixous’s depiction of where space makes meaning. She finds a basic signification of meanings emerge as we look into these works. The lapis lines sink or rise from bright, flowing ground, move us beyond fixed

These drawings locate us at the juncture of sculpture, picture, and script, an unsettling and freeing point where we are all at once in three-dimensional space (sculpture), subjective rapport to image (picture), and interpretation of inscribed sense (verbal language). In Here all is distance, there it was Breath, the artist’s freedom with line stays near the momentum of drawing, the “being born,” to use Cixous’s term, of visual meaning.

Standing with my notebook in front of a drawing, I wrote, “Plaster hugs and releases a gilded artifact — a small, glowing ruin of wall or floor.” The gold leafed piece that emerges from this particular plaster tablet resembles the shape of a 2013 concrete sculpture by Downen, called Artifact (from a dream.) While they differ in dimension and medium, both of the pieces look like fragments of reinforced wall joint. They suggest the intimacy of a corner space, the breakdown of architectural certainty, as well as the persistence of spatial memory. The

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drawing I wrote about in the gallery depicts this “dream artifact” in gleaming gold. It exalts the broken artifact much as a page of poetry uplifts a common noun: the common noun is the most phenomenal part of grammar, language’s envoy of thingness. Like nouns, Downen’s gold artifacts exude phenomenal meaning and memory.

They are voluminous homages to things, born in no small part of Downen’s longtime dialogue with phenomenology. If her language has a grammar, these fragmentary glyphs, its nouns, stand for the splendor of thingness.

Her drawings advance her exploration of thingness with a rich context for form to take on meaning, a carefully crafted morphology. Gold, here, illuminates the meaning of the artifact, but we see another substance birthing it, embracing, framing and pressing it into space. Ground and figure, white and gold move together, affecting and accepting one another. Where cultural history gives gold a precious autonomy, here that individual power is shared out with other substances. Here, gold is formed and broken and restored to meaning in the embrace of wall, page, cloud, air.

In spoken or written language, rhetoric deploys signs and syntax to draw an audience to a topic of argument, a ground of ideas. Here all is distance, there it was Breath draws us to the ground of spatial communication (“Here … there”). Its rhetoric, however, does not take up the structure of classical discourse. The poured grounds of these works constantly speak of movement and change. Ground becomes air: this is not the fixed foundation where discourse proves itself. While Downen’s tone is vivid, her language ushers us not into positions, but into contemplation, even meditation.

Downen’s mobile grounds and tilting plumb lines have long played with spatial markers like verticality, depth and straightness — figures in thought and speech which traditionally represent the idea of a human subject and how it inhabits a world. Sensing how architectural tradition mirrors old assumptions of being and serves metaphysical positions, Downen sets it into motion: the grounds of these works, for instance, pour like air or retreat like outer space. The sculptural diagrams of Here all is distance, there it was Breath draw us into a distance from trusted grounds and figures. Downen depicts, speaks and enacts the fact of architectural being and renders it an open question. This is not a rhetoric contrived to convince us of ideas, but rather a concerted activation of architectural markers in contexts that let them change.

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“But outside this shape is space […] As everyone with lungs breathes the space between the hands and the space around the hands and the space of the room and the space of the building that surrounds the room and the space of the neighborhoods nearby and the space of the cities in and out […]”

—Juliana Spahr, from Thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs

Here all is distance, there it was Breath: The exhibition title tells us that these works act in the measure of space — “distance” — in a memory of the air that connects us and founds our words — “Breath.” The works trace architecture with the precision of a breath tracing a spoken word. A written word of poetry is often thought of as a trace of breath, pointing to the moment of the poet’s inspiration. Here all is distance, there it was Breath renews the measure of being in space with the trace of language — the mark left when an architectural being has spoken.

The expressive movement of this exhibition does not aim toward a rhetorical peroration, a claim on space, a new ideological position. Its object is the question of architecture in the unfathomable depth of that word.

Downen’s drawings depict the building of space, but more significantly, they persuade us with a moving archi-rhetoric to enter architecture’s ever-emerging sense.

Anne Gatschet is an arts writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. She has worked as an editor and teacher while raising two children, composing poetry, and studying art, literary theory and languages. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

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NOTES ON AN EXHIBITION: HERE ALL IS DISTANCE, THERE IT WAS BREATH

BY JOSÉ FAUS José Faus is writer, performer and visual artist. He is a founder of the Latino Writers Collective and sits on the boards of the University of Missouri Kansas City Friends of the Library, The Latino Writers Collective and Charlotte Street Foundation. His chapbook This Town Like That was released by Spartan Press. His second book of poetry The Life and Times of Jose Calderon was published by West 39 Press. This text is one in a series of the gallery’s exhibitions written by fellow gallery artists and friends.

Caress a porcelain face relic contours of a map deep wayward marks key to a recent past a casual breath or an ordained intent The weight of distance a ripple on the surface the fragile bending the testament of curves and the breath of silence A chanced line falls disintegrates emerges in a hint of tender grace

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A wisp of blue lines in a breeze stiffen bend break fall again A casual hint of here and there hard embrace warm caress The demands of lean blue lines ride a careless urchin breeze a thought between possibility and fate and a deaf sustain

The architecture of memory a bough a limb a wisp A fugitive truth stout proliferating in a subdued breeze a residue of pain An apothecary remits a cure a blue palliative a mark embedded a trace a gesture set an undulating whim a tendered line the strictures of healing A breath a gasp time becomes strands memory a hard edge yesterday a sun breaking in pieces today a deep ocean tomorrow a shore a maelstrom swirling memories desiccating a shimmer bobbing a slight trace of a golden ecstasy Here all is distance Here all is distance

A frail rail a thought a memory perhaps a chance taken a furtive glance an erasure complete yet the permanence of reverie shines like beams tossed to the surface shed to float on casual waves with barely a mark but hints of life There it was breath There it was breath Persistence a blank slate folding and molding turning evolving porous and solid an awkward semblance a morphing countenance the theology of change the dogma of fate reverence manifested a distant breath in a shallow void

Flecks float ride like points of stars along meridians twelve healing notions twelve meditations cross latitudes a fixed compass eyes cast upward A palimpsest layers upon layers a grey dull surface and pricks of light fill the corpus Hope is a ship destiny a star the prime is infinite the calculus divine a wave is a mirror the sky a reflection a constancy of same Stars align vibrate a multiplicity of states diastole systole breath and distance become one in a single frame

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AFTERWORD

BY BRUNO L. DAVID

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I am pleased to present Here all is distance, there it was Breath, an exhibition by Jill Downen. This is Downen’s fifth exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition Here all is distance, there it was Breath features Jill Downen’s recent 8 x 10 inches drawings, executed in plaster, lapis lazuli and gold leaf, nearly forty works in all. This new body of work expands the artist’s renowned exploration of human spatial experience and the contemplative value of architectural form. Refined by decades of work with large scale sculptural installations, Downen’s drawings benefit not only from precise conceptual motivation, but also from her distilled palette and proven skill with plaster, lapis and gold leaf. Each piece depicts a moment in which new space emerges or where fragmented structure moves toward balance. Downen draws these moments from the capacities for movement inherent in her materials, resulting in gold-leafed glyphs that emerge from snow-like ground, contours of poured or chiseled plaster, or deep, scriptural lines of lapis lazuli inlay.

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 B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute and an M.F.A. as a Danforth Scholar from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts - Washington University in St. Louis. Jill Downen is an associate professor of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute.

She lives and works in Kansas City, MO. Support for the creation of significant new works of art has been the core to the mission and program of the Bruno David Gallery since its founding in 2005. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Anne Gatschet for her thoughtful essay and José Faus for his poem on Jill’s exhibition. I am deeply grateful to Lauren R. Mann and Zoe Duncan, who gave much time, talent, and expertise to the production of this catalogue. Invaluable gallery staff support for the exhibition was provided by Taylor Fulton, Sara Ghazi Asadollahi, Eliza Reinhardt, Lauren R. Mann, Natalie Snyder, and Zoe Duncan.

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CHECKLIST & IMAGES OF THE EXHIBITION

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Untitled 12 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 33 2019 Plaster, pigment, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 17 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 38 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 4 2019 Plaster, paper 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 26 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 35 2019 Plaster, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 19 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 7 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 5 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 11 2019 Plaster, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 23 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 13 2019 Plaster, lapis luzuli pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 21 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 16 2019 Plaster, paper 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 9 2019 Concrete, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 40 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 31 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 2 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 6 2019 Lapis lazuli pigment, matte medium 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 8 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 14 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 18 2019 Concrete, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 29 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 1 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 36 2019 Plaster, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 28 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 30 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 25 2019 Plaster 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 32 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 22 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 37 2019 Plaster, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 24 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 10 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 20 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

Untitled 39 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 42 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 41 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 27 2019 Plaster, basswood, pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 27 (detail)

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Untitled 3 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 3 (detail)

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Untitled 15 2019 Plaster, lapis lazuli pigment 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 15 (detail)

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Untitled 34 2019 Plaster, gold leaf 10 x 8 x 1-3/4 inches (25.40 x 20.32 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled 34 (detail)

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Untitled I 2019 Plaster, pigment 24 x 18 x 1-3/4 inches (60.96 x 45.72 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled I (detail)

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Untitled II 2019 Plaster, pigment 24 x 18 x 1-3/4 inches (60.96 x 45.72 x 4.45 cm)

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Untitled II (detail)

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Untitled III 2019 Plaster, pigment 24 x 18 x 1 inches (60.96 x 45.72 x 2.54 cm)

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Untitled III (detail)

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Untitled 2 2017 Plaster, gold leaf 7 x 5 x 1-1/2 inches (17.78 x 12.7 x 3.81 cm)

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Untitled 3 2017 Plaster, pigment 7 x 5 x 1-1/2 inches (17.78 x 12.7 x 3.81 cm)

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Untitled 1 2017 Plaster, pigment 7 x 5 x 1-1/2 inches (17.78 x 12.7 x 3.81 cm)

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Jill Downen: Here all is distance, there it was Breath (installation view)

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Jill Downen: Here all is distance, there it was Breath (installation view)

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JILL DOWNEN Lives and works in Kansas City, Missouri

EDUCATION 2001 1989

M.F.A., Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO B.F.A., Kansas City Art Institute, MO

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2019 Bruno David Gallery, Here all is distance, there it was Breath, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2016 Bruno David Gallery, As If You Are Here, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2015 Studios Inc, Site Unseen: Architectural Installations, Kansas City, MO. 2014 Hown’s Den, Ceiling Scape, Kansas City, MO. 2013 Bruno David Gallery, Three-Dimensional Sketchbook, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue)

Herron Galleries, 3x3: Restoration, Indianapolis, IN

Plug Projects, Three-Dimensional Sketchbook, Kansas City, MO 2012 North Texas Gallery, Dust and Distance, U. of North Texas, Denton, TX. (catalogue with DVD)

Bruno David Gallery, Mid-Section, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2011 Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Jill Downen: Counterparts, New Frontiers Series for Contemporary Art,

Oklahoma City, OK. (catalogue) 2010 The Luminary, (dis) Mantle, St. Louis, MO. 2009 Bruno David Gallery, Hard Hat Optional, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2008 Rosenberg Gallery, Drawing in Dialogue, (with Luce Irigaray), Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

(in conjunction with the 3rd Annual Luce Irigaray Circle Conference)

Bruno David Gallery, Cornerstone, New Media Room, St. Louis, MO. 2007 Cité Internationale des Arts, Corps et Bâtiment á Paris, Paris, France

Murray State University Gallery, In & Out of Space, (with Dean Kessmann), Murray, KY. 2006 Bruno David Gallery, (dis)embody, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue)

Tarble Arts Center, Uneasy Opposition, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL. (catalogue) 2004 Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, The Posture of Place, Great Rivers Biennial, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue)

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2003 2002 2001

Ninth Street Gallery, Body/Building: Involuntary Anatomies, St. Louis, MO. A.R.C. Gallery, Rubber Wall, Frontspace Installation, Chicago, IL. Beelke Gallery, Anxious Architecture, Purdue University, Lafayette, IN. In-Form Gallery, MFA Thesis Exhibit, St. Louis, MO.

PUBLIC COMMISSIONS AND SITE SPECIFICS 2019 2014 2010

Architectural Folly from a Future Place, Swope Park, Kansas City, MO. Skeleton & Skin, Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, IL. Currents, collaborative with Act 3, interactive permanent installation for Center of Creative Arts, St. Louis, MO. (destroyed in 2018)

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2020 2019

2018

2017

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State of the Arts 2020, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and The Momentary, Bentonville, AR MARKS, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. OVERVIEW_2019, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. Small Worlds, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. Open Spaces KC, The Exhibition, curated by Dan Cameron, Kansas City, MO. Time, Space and Process, Bethel University Olson Gallery, St. Paul, MN. REenter, OVERVIEW_2019, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. A Periodic Table: Imagined Spaces, Carter Art Center, Kansas City, MO. Flat Files, Digital files, Artspace, Kansas City, MO. OVERVIEW_2018, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. Please Touch: Body Boundaries, curated by Ysabel Pinyol, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ. Arte Laguna Prize International Exhibition, painting, Arsenal of Venice, Venice, Italy (catalogue) OVERVIEW_2017, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. Casting Shadows, Artspace, Kansas City, MO. Underpass, Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO. Artists for Truth Benefit Exhibition, Space Camp, Baltimore MD. Pilferage, curator Jacob Low, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis MO. Attach Files, 50/50, Kansas City MO. Cornerstone, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis MO. Spektrum, curator Robert Gann, Studios Inc, Kansas City MO. Studios Inc 2017, artists in residence annual exhibition, Studios Inc, Kansas City MO.

2016 Dynamic, Steckline Gallery Newman University, Wichita, KS.

Ontology of Influence, Ronald Leax and Alumni, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2016 Kansas City Flatfiles, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO. 2015 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO. (catalogue)

The Center is a Moving Target: If You Live(d) There, curated by Erin Dziedzic, Kemper at the Crossroads, Kansas City, MO.

Recent Acquisitions, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK.

AND/OR, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue)

Studios Inc 2015, resident exhibition, Kansas City, MO. 2014 OVERVIEW_2014, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Sightlines, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington D.C.

Resident Exhibition, Studios Inc, Kansas City, MO. 2014 Kansas City Flatfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO. 2013 Place is the Space, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO.

Artworks, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

New Four, KCAI Faculty Exhibition, H&R BlockSpace, Kansas City, MO. 2012 BLUE-WHITE-RED, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. 2011 Chain Letter, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

Jim Schmidt Presents Abstraction, Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Prints + Multiples, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. 2010 Art in Architecture, The Center for Contemporary Art, jurors Michael Graves, James Christen Steward,

Sassona Norton, Bedminster, NJ.

Over Paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. (catalogue) 2009 Monochrome, Manifest Creative Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH.

Quad-State Biennial, Quincy Art Center, Best of Show, juror Jim Schmidt, Quincy, IL. 2008 Hybrida, works on paper, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Overview_08, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

SLU Art Now, faculty exhibition, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO. 2007 Paper Now, I-Space, curated by Chris Kahler, Chicago, IL.

Overview_07, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Perspectives, Brooks Museum of Art, curated by Michael Rooks, Memphis, TN

Flat Files, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, curated by Katie Holten, St. Louis, MO.

Auction Exhibition, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO. 2006 Overview_06, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Overflow, 1708 Gallery, 2-person show curated by Elizabeth Keller, Richmond, VA. 2005 Inaugural Exhibition, Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, MO. 2004 Projects ‘04, Islip Art Museum Long Island Carriage House, East Islip, NY.

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2004 Danforth Scholars Show, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Everything you wanted to know, Elliot Smith Gallery, St. Louis, MO.

Arts Desire Auction, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO. 2003 Bi-national Art Exhibit, U.S. Embassy, curator Maria Velasco, Asuncion, Paraguay Corners,

Museum of Contemporary Art, curator Erica France, Ft. Collins, CO.

Wear Structure, Open-End Gallery & Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL. 2001 Heuristic Origins, Second Floor Contemporary, curator David Hall, Memphis, TN.

Exposure 4 The Spaces In-Between, Park Avenue Gallery, curator Terry Suhre, St. Louis, MO.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Anne Gatschet José Faus Bryan Hollerbach Kerry Marks Anne Gatschet Andrea L. Ferber Blair Schulman David Frese Daisy Alloto Alice Thorson Buzz Spector James McAnally Denise Kruse Cinday Hoedel James Martin Erin Dziedzic, Neil Thrun, Dana Self, Christel Highland Halle Smith Anne Canfield Kate Allen Nathan Mullins Tessa Glass

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“Jill Downen’s Drawings,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, November 2019 “Notes,” Catalogue Poetry, Bruno David Gallery Publication, November 2019 “14th Season at Bruno David Gallery”, Ladue News, September 20, 2019 “Jill Downen”, HEC-TV, interview, September 19, 2019 “Downen and Goldsworthy Walls in Kansas City”, Let Me See KC, June 19, 2019 “Open Spaces KC”, The Seen, Chicago, October 23, 2018 “Mixed Uses: Open Spaces KC”, Art in America News, September 19, 2018 “Open Spaces KC”, KC Studio Magazine, Sept/Oct 2018, Vol X, issue 5, pg.55 “Challenges and Realities of Breastfeeding at an Art Fair”, Hyperallergic, July 31, 2018 “Spektrum”, Sculpture Magazine, November 2017, pg. 77 “AND / OR,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, November 2017 “As If You Are Here,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, July 2016 “Artspeak: Q&A with Jill Downen”, Ladue News, January 7, 2016 “Charlotte Street Foundation fellows…”, Kansas City Star, December 5, 2015 “Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards Exhibition”, KC Studio Magazine, November 4, 2015 “Jill Downen: The Approach” brochure essay for 2015 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Awards, October 23, 2015 “The Center is a Moving Target”, KC Studio Magazine, October 19, 2015 “Site-Unseen: Architectural Installations”, KC Studio Magazine, September 28, 2015 “Artists Educators”, KC Studio Magazine, March-April 2015 “Studios Inc Beneficiaries Bedazzle”, Kansas City Star, January 29, 2015 “Faculty Profile”, KCAI President’s Report, 2013-14 “Art 314 Featured Artist Jill Downen”, Joy and Cake blog, November 19, 2014 “Architecture Like Flesh”, Mississippi Modern blog, September 2014 “Under Construction”, Register News, Mt. Vernon, IL August 5, 2014

Greg Peterson “Architectural Art comes to Cedarhurst”, Mt. Vernon Sentinel, IL August 4, 2014 Becky Malkovich “Making the Extraordinary” The Illinoisian, June 7, 2014 Peter MacKeith “Hand to Hand: Jill Downen’s 3 Dimentional Sketchbook,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, March 2014 Nancy Fowler “Relationship between art and design is focus of CAM’s 10th Anniversary,” St. Louis Beacon, September 5, 2013 Sarah Hermes Griesbach “Artist Plumb…”, The St. Louis Beacon, MO. September 23, 2013 ______________ “Brad Cloepfil’s St. Louis…”, Architectural Record Daily Headlines August 31, 2013 Sarah Bryan Miller “CAM Marks Anniversary…”, St Louis Post Dispatch, September 1, 2013, pp. D1 & D6 Christopher Reilly “Decade of Discovery”, Alive magazine, p26, September 2013 Jamilee Polson Lacy “Bad at Sports Blog”, Kansas City MO. February 6, 2013 Theresa Bembnister “Embodiment: Jill Downen brings her sketchbook to life”, The Pitch, Kansas City, MO. pg. 21, January 31, 2013 Blair Schulman “Artspeak”, live conversation, KKFI Radio Kansas City, January 17, 2013 Jessica Deleon “Dust & Distance invites viewers…”, The North Texan, Denton, TX. March 26, 2012 Emily Ng “Might Be Good, Dust & Distance”, Fluent-Collaborative, Austin, TX. #185, March 9, 2012 Lucinda Breeding “Deeper than Skin”, Denton Record-Chronicle, Denton, TX. March 3, 2012 Mike Kinney “Through the Lense”, CBS News 11, Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX. February 22, 2012 Stephen Becker “Art and Seek” picked up CBS “Through the Lense”, North Texas, February 24, 2012 Tiffany Barber “Two Folds and Counterparts: Jill Downen at OKCMOA”, Art Focus Oklahoma, Vol 26 No.2, March/April 2011 Dickson Beall “Body Buildings”, Documentary Film, (Joan Falk, Producer), 2010 ______________ “Counterparts”, Documentary Film, Oklahoma City Museum of Art,

New Frontiers Series for Contemporary Art, June 2011 Jennifer Klos “Jill Downen: Counterparts”, Oklahoma City Museum Connect, Vol. 2011-1, 2011 Hesse Caplinger “Parts and Counterparts”, St. Louis Magazine, March 2011 Dickson Beall “Current at COCA”, Arts Magazine, Documentary Film, January 2011 Ruth Ezell “Living St. Louis”, KETC (PBS, channel 9), January 10, 2011 Ivy Cooper “Jill Downen at the Luminary”, Art in America, December 2010 Jessica Baran “Jill Downen: (dis)Mantle”, RiverFront Times, October 7, 2010, p.28.

Steve Potter “Cityscape”, live conversation, KWMU Radio, NPR, October 01, 2010 Andrea L. Farber “Hard Hat Optional,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, May 2009 Ivy Cooper “Downen Takes a Fresh Direction”, St. Louis Beacon, May 4, 2009 David Bonetti “Jill Downen at Bruno David”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 3, 2009, E3 Hesse Caplinger “Don’t Think of a Construction Site”, St. Louis Fine Arts Examiner, April 25, 2009 Jessica Baran “Jill Downen, Hard Hat Optional” River Front Times, St. Louis MO. April 30, 2009 Dickson Beall “Construction Zone”, West End Word, April 15-28, 2009, 11 Stefene Russell “Jill Downen: Hard Hat Optional”, St. Louis Magazine Look/Listen, April 10, 2009 Felicia Chen “Hard Hat Optional,” Documentary Film, Bruno David Gallery Video, April 2009

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Alan Artner “Paper Now”, Chicago Tribune, September 21, 2007 Bill Griffin “Jill Downen,” Documentary Film, Illusion Junkie, September 2007 Jeffrey Hughes “Jill Downen”, Art Papers, July/August 2006, p. 70.

Natalie Kurz “Best in Show”, Alive Magazine St. Louis, September 2006, 63.

Melissa Merli “Sculptor explores physical connection between buildings & bodies”, News Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, IL,

July 30, 2006, E6-E8.

Jason Coates “Body Talk”, Style Weekly, Richmond, VA. July 26, 2006, pp. 37-38.

Dickson Beall “Jill Downen at Bruno David Gallery”, Illusion Junkie, April 2006.

Jan Garden Castro “St. Louis, Three Rivers Biennial”, Sculpture, Jan/Feb 2005, p.70.

Kim Humphries “(dis)embody,” Catalogue essay, Bruno David Gallery Publication, April 2006 Jan Garden Castro “St. Louis, Three Rivers Biennial”, Sculpture, Jan/Feb 2005, p. 70.

Robert T. Herrera “Inaugural Exhibition,” Bruno David Gallery Video, St. Louis, November 2005 David Bonetti “Art in 2004”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 02, 2005, p. G8 Helen A. Harrison “Projects ‘04”, The New York Times, September 26, 2004, L1, p. 11 Jeffrey Hughes “Jill Downen & The Posture of Place”, Washington University Artworks, vol 9, #2, Fall 04, cover story David Bonetti “Installation Art is Contemporary”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 1, 2004, p. F5.

Ivy Cooper “2004 Great Rivers Biennial Exhibition”, Riverfront Times, July 28, 2004, p. 42.

Tim Woodcock “Off the Wall”, West End Word, July 21, 200407, cover & p. 10.

Michael Sampson “Cityscape”, live conversation, KWMU Radio - NPR, July 16, 2004 David Bonetti “Great Rivers...Flow”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 11, 2004, p. F3.

Theresa Callahan “Danforth Scholars Show”, West End Word, January 21, 2004, pg. 12.

Angelica Zeller Michaelson, “Diversity…WU’s MFA show”, West End Word, May 10, 2001 Sarah Szczepanski “Artist’s exhibit focuses on Childhood memories”, Purdue Exponent, August 28, 2001 David Bonetti “Body/Building”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 9, 2000, p. C7.

Tim Brouk “Anxious Architecture”, Lafayette Journal and Courier, August 19, 2001, p.E2.

PUBLISHED WRITING Downen, Jill Downen, Jill

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Carmon Colangelo: Configured/Disfigured, catalogue essay, published by Bruno David Gallery, September 2006 Transpolyblu: art gone digital challenges traditional space, art review published by West End Word, February 22-28, 2001

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Oklahoma City Museum of Art Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts Sprint Corporation Southwest Illinois College Emerson Electric, Corp.

City of Kansas City Private Collections

PUBLIC LECTURES AND VISITING ARTIST 2019 2018

2017 2016 2015

2014 2013

2012

2011

Bruno David Gallery, “Here all is Distance, There it was Breath”, St. Louis, MO. Bethel University, “Time Space Process”, St. Paul, MN. 21C Salon & Open Spaces; “A View From Home”, moderator Erin Dziedzic, Kansas City, MO. Bruno David Gallery, “Regarding Breath”, St. Louis MO. Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, IL. KCAI, “Current Perspectives”, Kansas City MO. Studios Inc., Gallery Talk, Kansas City MO. Nerman Museum, Gallery Talk, Overland Park, KS. American University, Visiting Artist, Washington D.C. H&R Block Space, “Inspiration”, panelist, Kansas City, MO. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, “Gold leaf workshop”, St. Louis, MO. The Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Public Lecture, Mt. Vernon, IL. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Artist Roundtable: Place is the Space, St. Louis, MO. La Esquina, “Making with Architecture”, panel discussion, Kansas City, MO. Plug Projects, Gallery Talk, “Three-Dimensional Sketchbook, Kansas City, MO. Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO. Southern Illinois University, lecture and critiques, Edwardsville, IL. Bowling Green State University, “Architecture Lecture Series”, Bowling Green, OH. Dallas Museum of Art, Center for Creative Connections workshop, Dallas, TX. University of North Texas, Lecture/graduate critiques, Denton, TX. The Phillips Collection, “Conversations with Artists Series”, Washington D.C. George Washington University, Graduate Critiques, Washington D.C. American University, Graduate Critiques, Washington D.C.

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2011

2010 2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004 2002 2001

Webster University, Lecture, St. Louis, MO. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, “Frames of Reference”, St. Louis, MO. University of North Texas, Denton, TX. University of Oklahoma, Lecture and Critiques, Norman, OK. St. Louis Art Museum, “An Artist’s Favorites”, Gallery Talk, St. Louis, MO. Western Michigan University, Lecture & Workshop, Kalamazoo, MI. St. Louis Art Museum, “The Sculptural Object in Culture”, Gallery Talk, St. Louis, MO. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Lecture, Champaign, IL. University of Texas, Lecture, Austin, TX. American University, Lecture, Washington D.C. Forest City Gallery, Public Lecture, London, Ontario, Canada.

University of Arizona, Lecture, Tucson, AZ. University of Central Florida, Lecture, Orlando, FL. Drake University, lecture, Des Moines, IA. Washington University, “Gendered Expressions”, St. Louis, MO. Krannert Art Museum, Public Lecture, Urbana-Champaign, IL. Virginia Commonwealth University, Lecture/Critiques, Richmond, VA. University of Missouri St. Louis, Lecture, St. Louis, MO. Eastern Illinois University, lecture/critiques, Charleston, IL. George Washington University, Lecture/Critiques, Washington, D.C. Webster University, Lecture, St. Louis, MO. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Panelist, Public Discussion, St. Louis, MO. Memphis College of Art, Public Lecture/Critiques, Memphis, TN. Purdue University, Lecture/Critiques, Lafayette, IN.

GRANTS - AWARDS - RESIDENCIES 2019 2018

2017 2016

2015

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MASS MoCA, Assets4Artists Residency, North Adams, MA. Stone and DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO. KCAI faculty development grant Ragdale Foundation residency, Lake Forest, IL. Santo Foundation Grant, International, St. Louis, MO. KCAI faculty development grant ArtsKC, Inspiration Grant, Kansas City, MO. Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship, Kansas City, MO.

2015 KCAI faculty development grant, Kansas City, MO. 2013 Studios Inc Residency, Kansas City, MO.

KCAI faculty development grant, Kansas City, MO. 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, New York, NY. 2009 MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Peterborough, NH.

Leon Levy Foundation Grant, MacDowell Colonists

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Travel Grant, MacDowell Colony, Ragdale Foundation Residency,

Lake Forest, IL.

Vermont Studio Center residency and artist’s grant, Johnson, VT. 2007 Cité Internationale des Arts, residency, Paris, France.

2006 Emerson Visiting Critics/Curators Series, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

2002 Visits with Franklin Sirmans, Ingrid Schaffner, Shamim Momin, Thom Collins,

James Elaine, Douglas Fogle, Sylvia Chivaratanond, Hamza Walker 2004 Great Rivers Biennial Grant, Gateway Foundation & Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO.

Selected by curators Lisa Corrin, Debra Singer, and Hamza Walker 1999 Danforth Scholar Fellowship for Graduate Study, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.

SYMPOSIA AND CONFERENCES Panelist, Biomorphic Form, with Jack Rees, Keith Van Der Rite and Bill Zahner, International Sculpture Conference, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, 10/26/17 National Advisory Committee. International Sculpture Conference 2016-17 International Sculpture Conference Attendee, 10/17-22/2016 Conference Attendee. Marfa Dialogues, St. Louis, MO summer 2014 Panelist. Psychoanalytic Institute as part of the Arts and Analysis Program Conference Attendee. Rustbelt to Artistbelt IV, St. Louis, MO 04/12-14/12 “Creativity and Sculpture”, St. Louis, MO 04/11/2014 Keynote Speaker. American Institute of Architecture Students QUAD Conference, “Art and Architecture”, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 04/02/11 Presenter. Philosophy of Luce Irigaray 2nd Annual Conference, Stony Brook Manhattan, New York, NY 09/07/07 Panelist. People Watching at the Pulitzer, student-centered symposium, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO 04/17/07 Symposium Participant. Portrait, Homage, and Embodiment Symposium, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO 02/02/07 Symposium Participant. Minimalism and Beyond Symposium, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO 02/18-19/06

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brunodavidgallery.com brunodavidprojects.com @bdavidgallery #BrunoDavidGallery #JillDownen #HereAllIsDistanceThereItWasBreath #AnneGatschet #JosĂŠFaus #GoSeeArt #ArtExhibition #ArtBook #ArtCatalog instagram.com/brunodavidgallery/ facebook.com/bruno.david.gallery twitter.com/bdavidgallery goodartnews.com/

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ARTISTS Laura Beard Heather Bennett Lisa K. Blatt Michael Byron Bunny Burson Judy Child Carmon Colangelo Alex Couwenberg Terry James Conrad Jill Downen Yvette Drury Dubinsky Damon Freed Douglass Freed Richard Hull

Michael Jantzen Kelley Johnson Howard Jones (Estate) Chris Kahler Xizi Liu Bill Kohn (Estate) Leslie Laskey Justin Henry Miller James Austin Murray Yvonne Osei Patricia Olynyk Gary Passanise

Charles P. Reay Daniel Raedeke Tom Reed Frank Schwaiger Charles Schwall Christina Shmigel Thomas Sleet Buzz Spector Cindy Tower Mark Travers Monika Wulfers

Judy Pfaff

Ellen Jantzen

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