Roy Dowell in his studio, Los Angeles, CA, 2023.
Roy Dowell (b. 1951 in Bronxville, NY) received his Master of Fine Arts and his Bachelor of Arts from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA and studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA.
Dowell has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at The Landing, Los Angeles, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA; as-is.la, Los Angeles, CA; 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; Tif Sigfrids Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Proxy Paris @Galerie Ygrec, Paris, France; and James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA.
His work has been included in institutional group exhibitions at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Musée d’art moderne et d’art contemporain, Nice, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, and elsewhere.
Dowell’s work may be found in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, among others.
He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Mexico City, Mexico.
By Kara Cox
Roy Dowell's solo exhibition at 511 W 22nd Street reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail.
NEW YORK – MILES MCENERY GALLERY is pleased announce its representation of Roy Dowell.
Roy Dowell 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.
Utilizing a broad array of influences, Dowell creates a familiar—but not easily named—world of signs, symbols, tools, objects, and places. He engages and challenges the viewer to decode and decipher his work and to find and locate themselves in it. Dowell’s acrylic on linen paintings are graphically bold. They are painted with invention and with a thoughtful awareness of the many histories of the applied and decorative arts.
