{"id":21851,"date":"2024-06-14T09:10:29","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T07:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inzaken.eu\/?p=21851"},"modified":"2025-10-16T08:43:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T06:43:15","slug":"michael-downs-a-true-globetrotter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inzaken.eu\/index.php\/2024\/06\/14\/michael-downs-a-true-globetrotter\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Downs, a true globetrotter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On a Sunny King\u2019s Day I saw the exhibition \u2018Piecing China Together<\/em>\u2019 of Michael Downs at EAE Studio<\/em>.  Some of his collages about Chinese Life, among them one big one, were hanging on the walls of the art room located along the picturesque Nieuwe Rijn in Leiden.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They weren\u2019t rectangular, but curvy, round, stretched out, squashed. You see landscapes, houses, roads, rivers, parks,  geometrical symbols like cones, high rise buildings on a small scale. The works have titles as China Stretched<\/em>, China Squashed <\/em>and  The city at 3 AM<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Songzhuang Artists\u2019 Village<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Downs is a true globetrotter. He was born in Skipton, England, went to the Bath Academy of Art and Design<\/em> and moved in his thirties to Australia  where he was teaching and a director at the National Art School<\/em>. After a while he embarked upon a long series of journeys across Asia, painting and exhibiting wherever he went. He spent considerable time in Indonesia, working first in Bali where he owns a studio, and in Yogyakarta, where he is involved in a long term project with the villagers who live on the slopes of Mount Merapi<\/em>, one of the world\u2019s most active and dangerous volcanoes.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The last five years Michael Downs has worked for extended periods in Beijing. Now he he lives in the Songzhuang Artists\u2019 Village<\/em>, an hour east of Beijing city centre.  10.000 artists are living there, among them 23 \u2018foreigners\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walking around the city<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Downs was a witness of the enormous drive by China to be the world\u2019s largest economy. Michael Downs: \u2018It has resulted in an endless disruption of everyday life and a transformation of the landscape which is unprecedented in history.\u2019 The paintings, constructions and collages by Michael Downs reflect the order and chaos of the Chinese landscape and the surrealism of its hyper-development. In many collages found metal and torn fragments are processed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael Downs: \u2018I spent spent much time in Beijng, Shanghai and Kunming working on either \u2018fragments\u2019 of \u2018composites\u2019 of my work. They start from walks around a city where I take photographs, make sketches and get a general \u2018feel\u2019 of the location.  Often I make small collages  straight afterwards and subsequently I scan them  digitally  and reprint it on a huge scale on photographic paper. These are then turned back into fragments and re-collaged into the paintings.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paintings are based on large sheets of plywood which are \u2018drawn\u2019 with a jigsaw before I cover them with linen or photographs. These, in turn, can be re-cut info further fragments and combined with part of other paintings. This mirrors the perceptual process of moving around a Chinese city; I build up complex composites of small pieces of information which varies each time I make the  journey. Every journey is unique; every moment is singular. And all is in flux.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Body-scaled experiments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was a young boy, he was interested in his relation with the landscape, Michael says. \u2018I climbed rocks. I was wandering thorough the landscape.\u2019 As a grown man he is still fascinated by it.  His landscapes are a metaphor. \u2019When I look at a landscape, I feel different things. It\u2019s not only what I look at, but also what I know, and don\u2019t know. I am interested in globalization and pollution. It is an animated form which implies fluidity, motion, change and so on. The paintings grow from a startingpoint. The relation of the human body to the painting is important. See Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s famous work \u2018The Vitruvian man<\/em>\u2019.  I love the world \u2013 with bodies. My paintings are body-scaled experiments of landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Key-Pieces<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Downs has two key-pieces, he says. An early work and a more recent work.The early one is called \u2018Chemical Sunset<\/em>\u2019 and made in 1987. He was painting more chemical sunsets  at the time. \u2018This work captured everything I wanted to say. I used many materials, steel, aluminum, iron, carpet, found objects. It is an imagination of the Industrial landscape in England. It was shown in many galleries in Europe, in the Centre Pompidou<\/em>. It\u2019s my most powerfull painting. A lot of work relates to this painting.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The second Key Piece was made in 2012 and has the title \u2018Squashed Nr. 1<\/em>\u2019. It is about witnessing China\u2019s unscaled recent history. \u2018It has a frightening pace. The government is powerful, society is changing fast. People, most little people, are moved around, squashed and folded. The painting looks like an earthquake, everything is pressed. The Chinese understand what I want to say. I am very fond of this painting. It is now in the collection of a business man in Guangzhou, a city in the South of China province where one quarter of the world\u2019s produced goods comes from.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Painting is not dead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Downs\u2019work is represented by numerous galleries in Asia and Australia. It found its way in public, corporate and private collections around the world. Painting is is not dead, he believes. \u2018It will never die. Many artists these days have moved into new media. I believe in the direct relationship human body and art object. We respond to things in front of us. It\u2019s very important to make objects a person can enjoy. Painting is there already thousands of years. It will also stay thousands of years.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Written in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.michaeldowns.cc\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.eaestudio.nl\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/marbellamarbella.es\/2015-05-09\/world-fine-art-professionals-and-their-key-pieces-41-michael-downs\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 41 \u2013 Michael Downs<\/a><\/blockquote>