Derek Eller Gallery opens solo exhibitions of works by William Downs and André Ethier
André Ethier, Untitled, 2021. Oil on canvas, 20.25 x 24 inches.
NEW YORK, NY
.-Derek Eller Gallery is presenting Pieces of a Man, a solo exhibition of monumental black ink and spray paint works on canvas and paper by William Downs. Utilizing his own well-developed visual language in which androgynous moving bodies fluidly interact within a Bosch-ian landscape, Downs composes scenes which evoke compassion, vulnerability, darkness, and light.
Downs applies India ink with brushes, sticks, and brooms, creating a lexicon of mark-making which denotes movement, weight, and depth. Rendered in a line which fluctuates from tight and calligraphic to watery and loose, Downs figures are hairless and barefoot. At times, facial features are blurred and repeated, indicating motion. Bodies are either naked or clad in cactus suits, a prickly protective layer which covers most everything but leaves the face and buttocks exposed. Spectral shadow figures a tonal nod to Kerry James Marshall in their deeply saturated black are interspersed throughout, and passages of spray paint act as punctuation.