Works On Paper by Brad Downey
@kanyakage Eisenbahnstrasse 10
10997 Berlin-Kreuzberg
Brad Downey is a multimedia artist expressing himself in many ways such as drawings, collages, montages, video works and photography. He also is an outside artist. This does not indicate he is an outsider artist but that he somteimes is working outside of his studio. His interventions and scultputes are inscened in the cities and on the countryside. Here he finds his material and inspiration for his sometimes playful and always poetic works. But still he is not an average urban or landscape artist. There is something else to Downeys art.
For his show at KanyaKage Brad Downey is dealing with the topic of a nuclear threat. The fear of a nuclear war that was a wide spread social phenomena during the cold war, especially in the 1980s, seems a little outdated today, with everybody being afraid of terrorism and climate change as a collective Angst. It is constantly present though when you look at conflicts such as the ones with nations like North Korea or Iran. To Downey this threat has a very personal side though: „My grandfather was on one of the first American army ships that arrived in Hiroshima as a soldier after the bomb dropped. A clean up crew of sorts. I myslef have been obsessively scared of atomic bombs the last months. Going down conspiracy rabbit holes about CERN making black holes, petaquarks, and overlapped timelines.“ As a result of these thought patterns Brad Downey in the last months produced an array of colourful collages, black and white drawings and large scale print drawing that deal with the subject.
Brad Downeys work is always both: subtle and in your face, clear and obvious as also a poetic mystifaction of the every day. First comes a good eye, a clear observation that lead to his findings. Then in a playful act the process of creation that leaves the beholder in an often amused state of astonishment. Let’s not forget to mention that his artworks oftentimes have a humorous aspect to them. Because humour is an earnest way of looking at the world also. It’s the world Brad Downey is dealing with.
OPENING
20.09.2018
18:00 – 22:00
EXHIBITION:
21.09.2018 – 07.10.2018
by appointment
ARTIST TALK
tbd
LOCATION
kanyakage
Eisenbahnstrasse 10
10997 Berlin-Kreuzberg