BA, Bard College. MFA, Hunter College. Downey’s interdisciplinary practice explores embodied forms of resistance and transformation. They use experimental strategies to draw connections between interior worlds and sociopolitical landscapes. They have exhibited at Soloway Gallery and Underdonk in Brooklyn, NY; Bureau of General Services-Queer Division and Kate Warble in New York, NY; Queens Museum in Flushing, NY; The Knockdown Center in Maspeth, NY; The Hessel Museum at Bard CCS in Annandale, NY; Cooper Cole in Toronto, CA; and Taylor Macklin in Zurich, CH. Their publication, "We collect together in a net," was published by Wendy’s Subway in 2019. Artist-in-residencies include Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Triangle Arts Association, the Drawing Center’s Open Sessions, and the Vermont Studio Center. Downey is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and participated in the Queer|Art|Mentorship program in 2013 (paired with Angela Dufresne). Their work has been in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Washington Post. Downey spent over a decade teaching community and access programs at The Museum of Modern Art. They have also recently taught at Williams College and Rhode Island School of Design. SLC, 2025–
Undergraduate Courses 2025-2026
Visual and Studio Arts
Interdisciplinary Drawing
Open, Seminar—Spring
ARTS 3418
Making a drawing is always a kind of performance. Through any means necessary, a body reaches across time and space to make contact with its world. This course will explore how and why drawings get made through diverse intentions and contexts. Guided by contemporary and modern art historical precedents, we will explore the dynamic and intertwined relationship between performance art and other interdisciplinary approaches to drawing. In our weekly hands-on studio work, students will respond to a guiding question or theme. We will use both conventional and unorthodox materials and experiment with everyday objects. For example, in asking where does my body end and space begin, we will construct our own sculptural apparatuses and body extensions to produce our images. Coursework will also involve conceptual exploration that culminates in a final project of students’ own choosing. Open to all skill levels, this course is designed for those interested in process-based inquiry. Potential concepts or themes include: embodiment and phenomenology, identity and culture, memory and time, technology and digital media, collaboration and interactive art, vibrant matter and ecologies.
Faculty
The Body Is the Medium: An Introduction to Performance Art
Open, Seminar—Fall
ARTS 3426
This course will introduce students to the practice and principles of performance art, exploring diverse ways of using the body in relation to audience, site/context, and duration. Performance art’s ties to experimental and avant-garde movements and modes of political resistance make it an ideal medium for exploring themes of identity and power and, equally, forms of improvisational play. Students will develop their own performance style of expression unique to their creative and intellectual interests. As a highly adaptive and interdisciplinary medium, this course will invite students to combine performance art with other visual-arts mediums (painting, sculpture, installation, and video) and to activate any past experiences in theatre, dance, music, ritual, comedy, athletics, and more.