WashU alum awarded 2024 Art Omi International Artist Residency

Jill Downen, MFA ’01, has been selected by Charlotte Street for the prestigious Art Omi International Artist Residency in Upstate New York.

Art Omi invites two dozen international artists working in a wide variety of artistic styles and practices to New York’s Hudson Valley for the annual summer residency program. Two critics-curators facilitate discussion, conduct studio visits, and connect artists with art world professionals. Each year, Charlotte Street one past Award Fellow to attend the program, which includes a fully-funded artist residency and professionally curated exhibition.

Downen works in site-responsive installations, sculpture, and drawing. In a press release, Downen shared, “As an artist-in-residence at Art Omi, I look forward to engaging in dialogue with visiting critics and participating in a community of international artists while I make new work. I want to transform my studio into an art installation; with Dia Beacon nearby, I know I’ll have plenty of inspiration.”

A 2018 recipient of the Sam Fox School’s Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award and a 2022 Awards for Distinction honoree, Downen is the chair of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute.

About Jill Downen
Jill Downen (b. 1967, Belleville, IL) is a non-binary American artist based in Kansas City who works in site-responsive installations, sculpture, and drawing. Significant awards include the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Stone and DeGuire Contemporary Art Award, the Charlotte Street Visual Artists Award, and a Santo Foundation Grant. Jill Downen has created installations at The Momentary/Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, The Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and for Open Spaces: The Exhibition. Their residencies include MASS MoCA, the MacDowell Colony National Endowment for the Arts residency, and Cité International des Arts residency in Paris, among others.

Downen has lectured about their work extensively, including the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and the Luce Irigaray Circle Philosophy Conference in New York. They hold a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the Sam Fox School at Washington University in St. Louis. Jill Downen is the chair of sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute and is represented by the Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis.