Andrea Downs (she/her) is a social practice and mixed media artist and art educator. Through her work, she strives to foster collaboration and connection through the building of community connections and an open invitation for a diverse community dialogue.
In February 2018, Andrea began inviting women to participate in Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry. This ongoing community art project responds to the silencing of women* by creating opportunities for all women to share experiences through visual storytelling.
The initiative serves as an amplifier for women’s voices, a call to gather together to listen and to be heard, and an opportunity to foster love and understanding that resists hate and injustice.
*Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry holds space for all women across the intersections of race, age, color, disability, faith, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, social class, economic class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
Bio
Andrea is a social practice and mixed media artist and educator who has been teaching art in public and independent schools since 2004. She earned her BA and MA in Art Education summa cum laude from Ohio State University. Central to her work is the exploration of identity and the value of relationships and community. She has exhibited solo shows at The Mint Museum, Center for the Arts Perimeter Gallery (SC), Winthrop University, UNC Charlotte, and C3 Lab and worked in partnership with a number of community organizations, independent artists and institutions including Charlotte Pride, Charlotte Women’s Movement, Wells Fargo, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Guerilla Poets, Project Enough, The Baltimore Sleepover, Charlotte Lit, Iron Crow Theatre, BOOM Charlotte, Charlotte Reproductive Action Network, Brave Step, Levine Museum of the New South, CLTextile, Columbus Community Festival (Comfest), and the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. She has been the recipient of grants and awards for both her studio and teaching practice including a HUG Grant (Charlotte is Creative), Cultural Vision Grant (Arts and Science Council of Charlotte), Social Impact Grant (Red Ventures), Free Fall Baltimore Grant (Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts), Teacher of the Year, and the Blackwell Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.
She lives with her husband and two children in Baltimore, Maryland where she is the middle school art teacher at the St. Paul’s School for Boys, MS Arts Department Chair, and the Director of TSPS Galleries and Exhibitions.
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