|
 Jerry Wayne Downs continues the art of the great surrealists.
Like them, he rips through the veil of conventionality and brings to a contemporary
audience a fresh perception of the nature of reality. With artistic alchemy, Downs
fashions surreal worlds populated with unlikely companions – eggs and half-buried
cars in Landscape with Xenophobic Remains, an elegant theater staircase that leads
to a gossamer unknown in Staircase, a highway so jam-packed that rapid-paced
vehicles are rendered immobile in No Exit, or, as depicted in Matinee, a
movie theater in a romantic forest becomes a forest in a romantic movie theater.
Downs deliberately calibrates these seemingly
out-of-joint and juxtaposed relationships with enough
sleight-of-hand and sorcery to excite the viewer into rethinking the
meaning of art and the artist’s message each time the work is
encountered.
Downs’ subject matter is engaging for yet
another reason – his superb mastery of the painter’s craft. The
artist articulates his dreamlike landscapes with perfect
brushstrokes, exquisite colors, and flawless rendering, tantalizing
the viewer to enter each canvas and partake of the surreal delights
within.
- Roberta Carasso, Ph.D.
|
|
