Beatrice Helman interviews painter Sean Downey.

Downey comments: “I think of the imagery I use in pretty abstract terms. I think of recognizability of imagery, and narrative, as just additional dimensions of pictorial space—like light, color, value, etc. I have a pretty collage-minded approach to creating images; I’m constantly returning to the idea of taking ‘known’ components and combining them in such a way that something new and strange emerges, an idea or mood or reference that was not previously in any of the component parts, but only emerges if they are assembled in a very specific relationship to each other. The language of painting is the place where I can unify those disparate parts (or ideas), and then meter how disjointed or fluid things are.”