Rackstraw Downes is known for being a realist painter when it comes to his paintings, drawings, and oil paintings. He is known for painting mainly landscapes, cityscapes, and urban scenes. Downes views the the act of seeing and the art of representation as culturally taught. Rackstraw does not think of himself as a landscape painter, but as a painter of his surroundings- his environment according to Art21. He purchased a farm in Maine in 1964 where his landscape drawings began. The next year, he moved to New York City. He is known as the realist painter because he painted scenes as they were. He used a bird’s eye-view or a panoramic style in most of his paintings. He traveled a lot and did a vast amount of landscape paintings. Most of his sites were in Maine or Texas, many of them being the harbor or Portland, Maine and the Donald Judd structures in Marfa,Texas.
Downes used interiors of a panoramic scale like his landscapes. His images pay careful attention to details as well as the surroundings around that place. His paintings a well known for their detail. The visual observations and the horizontal lines bending are what grab the attention of the paintings. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson says “Downes paints beautiful pictures of ugly places”.
In one of his Texas paintings, it was a dead field with some dead grass and dry dirt. Behind it, was a white shed and a white fence. Beyond that, he saw beautiful pink mountains in the back ground. That captivated Downes as he saw the beauty of the earth and how not everything is as it seems. He is very possessive of his areas where he paints as he says. He does not want anyone taking his spot or capture his painting. He never resorts to photography, only what hsis eye takes in from that view he has picked.
One unique quality of painting Downes has is that his paintings change over time. According to Art21, he works in a series, observes multiple angles. Also what happens over time icluding changes of light and shadows as well as his own point of view.
He captured man-made structures and nature by finding the ellipses and arcs. His main goal was to capture the surroundings of the place. He works very slow and it evolves very slow too. According to Downes, he starts his paintings with a chord. “That is actually my rule. You get a touch of green, a touch of blue, and a touch of brown. The chord is an idea, where you bring three colors together, so that you the contrast” says Downes. Rackstraw Downes also says that in painting,” the longer you look, the more you see” You can discover new things and relationships.
From researching Rackstraw Downes, I have found his work fascinating. Like art critic Ken Johnson says about Downes making ugly things beautiful is very true. He can take under an interstate bridge and make it unique by details and looking at the surroundings of it. If we just stand back and observe, we can discover new things.
Scotland Hills
