RESUME

E. Saffronia Downing works with wild clay to map material residues across time and place. She creates site-specific installations and sculptures using local materials foraged from sedimentary deposits, roadsides and riverbeds as a way of forming a closer relationship to the land humanity inhabits. Through her work Downing explores entanglements between the human-built and natural world, and posits that the pursuit of foraging considers the various points of correspondence between maker and matter. Downing received her MFA in ceramics from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in Studio Art from Hampshire College. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Tracks and Other Signs at Old Friends, Chicago, IL; Clay-In-Place at Triangle Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Flattened Flora; Compass Sampler at Roots and Culture, Chicago, IL; and, Field Dug Over at Bad Water Gallery, Knoxville, TN. The artist’s work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, as well, including those at Interloc Projects, Thomaston, MA; SPACE538, Portland, ME; The Betsy Gallery, Saugatuck, MI; LVL3 Gallery, Chicago, IL; and the Setouchi Triennial, Takamatsu, Japan. Downing has also been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships and residencies including a studio session at A-B Projects; grants from SPACE American Rescue Plan Project and Buck Lab for Climate and Environment; fellowships at College of the Atlantic, Lunder Institute of American Art and Oxbow; and, residencies at Salem Art Works, ACRE and Tokyo Arts University. Downing is a self-published author and the co-creator of the online publication ‘viral ecologies,’ and her work has been further featured in American Craft Magazine, NewCity Art, Sixty Inches From Center, LVL3 and The Lantern. The artist is currently based in Upstate, NY.