Timothy McDowell


Timothy McDowell

Lucretia L. Allyn Professor of Art

Joined Connecticut College: 1981

Education
B.F.A., Midwestern State University
M.F.A., University of Arizona


Specializations

Lithography

Woodcut

Monotype

Etching

Engraving and collograph

Cyanotype and photomechanical image making in relation to an experimental drawing course

Timothy McDowell teaches intaglio printmaking using photopolymer plates, woodcut, linocut and stone lithography. These processes are rotated through Print Workshop, courses ART 204 and ART 202. He also teaches Drawing Fundamentals and Drawing Through Process.

He has exhibited his work nationally with gallery representation in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Nashville, Santa Fe, and Brooklyn; and internationally with galleries in Calgary, Canada; Sao Paolo, Brazil; Kanazawa, Japan; Quito, Ecuador; Venice, Italy; and Utrecht, Netherlands. He has represented the United States at the 5th Cuenca Biennial of Painting, Quito and Guayaquil, Ecuador, selected by Commissioner/Curator David Rubin of Phoenix Museum of Art.

McDowell's work can be found in several museums and private collections. These include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Prints and Drawings Collection, New York, New York; The University of Iowa Art Museum, Iowa City, Iowa; The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona; Sol LeWitt Collection, Chester, Connecticut; Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California; and The William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, Connecticut.

You can view his artwork online.

Timothy was born in Texas and spent his formative years regularly visiting family in SOHO, New York City, during the 1960’s and 70’s. This exposure to active artists, their lofts, family and friends was quite influential in determining his future decisions. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree in Texas and his master's degree in fine arts in Tucson from the University of Arizona. In Tucson, he was assigned a fellowship as printer for the PressTime Studio of the Department of Art and oversaw printing sessions with visiting artists while hosting their stay. These artists included Lynda Benglis, Robert Irwin and James Turrell. In 1981, immediately upon finishing graduate school, he was hired for his position here at Connecticut College.  

Throughout his career, he has juried national exhibitions, selected awards and recipients of artists’ grants and has been a visiting artist to various other institutions and art centers. In 2014-2015 he was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Artist Grant for Painting. 

Timothy McDowell Curriculum Vitae (pdf)     

Ultimately art making involves us in an ever-expanding investigation of topics, subjects, philosophies, sciences and numerous other paths of influence and especially other art. Since all things are in some way connected and interdependent, no real boundary exists to prohibit venturing from one category into another, especially if a connection across a boundary is revealed in the quest. Once an element is revealed to further the inquiry or expand the visual language, that element is appropriated. The whole, with its range and variety of expression, hopefully starts to define the message by taking a polyphonic perspective on the same topic. Defying my nature or tendency of trial and exploration on creating images would be a contradiction. My obligation is to keep exploring boundaries that somehow encircle the subject and thereby define it. In the past I was particularly interested in reproducing elegiac natural settings as a critique to reckless exploitation of resources. More recently, however, I have shifted my attention to emblematic objects, which, decontextualized from their familiar settings, lead viewers to imagine new worlds. In this new direction, my creative process is often initiated by a reaction to an external stimulus; then, it is carried out as a dialogue with various processes, where mistakes and accidents can occur, improving on the assumed impeccability of one’s prior concept. My work now has no boundaries for practice or process. I think either this methodology has come about because of my teaching, or it has come about because I love to teach things that cater to my passion for process.

Tim McDowell

Contact Timothy McDowell

Mailing Address

Timothy McDowell
Connecticut College
Box # ART/Cummings Arts Center
270 Mohegan Ave.
New London, CT 06320

Office

302 Cummings Arts Center