T. David Downs

Though removed from the Man-made world, a human presence remains at the edge of the imagery; a deer leaping over a controlled burn, a sandhill crane hunting in parking lot runoff, a tagged cypress tree in a swamp, an ancient shell mound on which a forest grows.

Each painting begins by walking the woods and wetlands of my home region. Exploring upland pine forests, turkey oak scrublands, the Okefenokee swamp, these experiences are distilled into my imagery.
This distillation is where my voice forms, beginning a conversation between painter and painting, an exchange between myself, my craft, and my subject.
In this conversation resides the exuberance and lucidity of a flow-state, a confluence of the elements of self, craft, and subject. Each finished picture is evidence of this former state of immersion.