Rackstraw downes was born on November 8, 1939 in Pembury, United Kingdom. Downes full birth name is actually Rodney Harry Rackstraw Downes. This British-born painter is known for his meticulous attention to detail and works for months at a time on any one single piece he produces, and does so through ‘plein-air’ sessions. Downes lived in the united kingdom, but became an exchange student at Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. He later returned to the United kingdom to attend the University of Cambridge and attended St. John’s College and received a Bachelor of arts in English literature. His final academic endeavor would be at Yale School of Art where he received his Master of Fine Arts in painting in 1964. Downes began his painting though abstraction, but would quickly abandon that theme for a realism one. In his studies Downes would become highly focused on the unusual man-altered environments.

En Plein Air is French for “outdoors”, and is the act of painting outdoors. In contrast to the studio setting of most mainstream artists, painting outdoor creates a “free flow” of the environment before you and is a practice where conventional studio rules do not apply or can be ignored.

Rackstraw rejects the idea of being labeled a landscape artist, but rather more of a painter who just paints his surroundings. He is well known for finding unusual or not highly favorable spots like cellphone towers, electrical stations, powerlines, and sewer drains. He also tends to choose landscapes that are strange in shape and contain formations or eve rday objects that are normally hidden away for cosmetic reasons. These setting he refers to as “Man-altered environments.”. Downes likes to stick to the old Dutch tradition of finishing all works on site; without the use of a camera.

Downes has a favorite quote by Picasso that says ” Some young people, artists, are older than those who have been dead for centuries”, and reflects back on his own work with how he, and many of us, have to seek out the art of the centuries past and learn from them. He goes on to speak about why it’s important to look back and study works of the old masters. He then refers to his troubles of trying to recreate steam coming from a factory warehouse, and refers back to J.M.W. Turner’s The Burning. Downes doesn’t wish to recreate the works of his favorite studied artists, but rather uses their works as a means to put together the puzzle pieces to create an original work based off of the techniques of those he has studied, but Downes rejects the conventional oil painting techniques, even of those he has studied and has his own way of putting his paint down and removing it. Downes spoke and said “I don’t just let it dry and paint over it again and again. I slap a glob down, and if i don’t like it, I take it off and slap a different one down”.

“I don’t have any sentimentality about those painters. It’s that they seemed useful to me and provocative to me. They were like a challenges to me.

‘Can you do this that well?”

Citations:

1. “Rackstraw Downes.” Art21, https://art21.org/artist/rackstraw-downes/.
2. “Rackstraw Downes.” Betty Cuningham Gallery, http://www.bettycuninghamgallery.com/artists/rackstraw-downes.
3. Adam, Alfred Mac. “Rackstraw Downes: Paintings & Drawings.” The Brooklyn Rail, 10 Sept. 2018, https://brooklynrail.org/2018/09/artseen/Rackstraw-Downes-Paintings-Drawings.