Roy Dowell

Background

Roy Dowell was born in 1951, in Bronxville, New York, United States.

Education

During the period from 1969 to 1971, Roy studied at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Then, he continued his education at the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1973 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975.

Career

In 1977, Roy got a teaching job at Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys and continued to hold the post for seven years. In 1990, he founded the Graduate Fine Arts Department at Otis College of Art and Design and still serves as its Chair.

In 1990-1991, Roy acted as an artist in the Djerassi Artists Residency. Besides, he also served as artist-in-residence at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado.

During his career, Roy has had a number of solo exhibitions, including "Found in Translation", Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California; "Some of Me and the Sum of Others", As-Is Gallery, Los Angeles, California; "Roy Dowell: Mosaics", Tif Sigfrids Gallery, Los Angeles, California; "Roy Dowell: New Work", James Harris Gallery, Seattle, Washington; "Roy Dowell, New Work", Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York City, New York, among others.

Moreover, Dowell's works were exhibited in many group exhibitions, including "Feedback", curated by Helen Molesworth, Jack Shainman Gallery: The School, Kinderhook, New York; "Constellations", Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York City, New York; "The American Academy Invitational Exhibition of Visual Art", the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, New York; "Make/Work", curated by Jenene Nagy, Los Angeles Valley College, Van Nuys, California; "Vision Valley", curated by Adam Miller, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, California; "Synchronicity: a State of Painting", Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York City, New York; "Memory Theater", curated by Srijon Cowdhury, Portland, Oregon; "A Few Days", Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York City, New York; "Salon du Dessin", Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York City, New York; "Death Ship", curated by Adam Miller and Devon Oder, the Pit Gallery, Glendale, California, among others.

Roy's commissioned works include "Nature Culture" mural (1989); "Ajax" installation, commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for "Windows on Wilshire" (1998); LAX-ART Billboard project, displayed on La Cienega Boulevard, California (2012), among others.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Los Angeles.

Achievements

• Roy Dowell is a notable visual artist, who uses elements of contemporary commercial culture and the history of early 20th-century painting to create explosive and vital abstract collages and paintings. Among his selected works are "Untitled #1068", "Untitled #1046", "Untitled #1069" and "Untitled #1034".
  
  Roy is a recipient of the J. Paul Getty Fellowship in the Visual Arts, the Art Matters Inc. Fellowship and the Community Foundation Artists Resource Completion Grant.
  
  Besides, Dowell was featured in articles for the Apollo, the Artforum and the ArtScene. Also, he was a "critic's pick" in the May 2010 issue of ARTnews.
  
  Today, the artist's works are held in permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco; as well as in the Jumex Collection, the Eli Broad Collection and many other significant institutional and private collections.
  
  Besides, Roy's works are kept in public collections of such institutions, as the Phoenix Museum of Art, Phoenix; Security Pacific National Bank, Los Angeles; the Southern California Gas Company, Los Angeles; SunAmerica Center, Los Angeles and others.

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • Untitled #1068

  • Untitled #1046

  • Untitled #1069

  • Untitled #1034

  • Untitled #1125

  • Untitled #889

  • Untitled #911

  • Untitled #1104

  • Untitled #1112

  • Untitled #1117

  • Untitled #1119

  • Untitled #1120

  • Untitled #1123

  • Untitled #1126

  • Untitled #1127

  • Untitled #1128

  • Untitled #1129

  • Untitled #1130

  • Untitled #1131

  • Untitled #1132

  • Untitled #1133

  • Untitled #1134

  • Untitled #1136

  • The Explorer

Views

Dowell's interest lies in modernism, and the elements in his work echo this. He uses elements of everyday imagery and life and abstracts them to remove them from a familiar context and make them something of his own. Viewers are then able to decipher the works and pull out these links.

Dowell's two-dimensional and three-dimensional works go seamlessly together and play off of one another to create a body of work. His works reference not only daily life, but also the cultures and imagery Dowell has encountered on his travels around the world.

Roy creates stories to both provoke and seduce the viewer with his use of color, pattern, folk motifs and design elements. He has created a primarily abstract visual vocabulary, in which he imbues these formal elements with symbolic meaning.

Connections

Lari Pittman, a painter, is Roy's life partner.

life partner:

Lari Pittman