Orchid Blues

Cameron Downey is an anti-disciplinary artist born and raised in North Minneapolis, Minnesota whose work oscillates between photography, film, body, sculpture, curation and otherwise. Seeing instruction in the incidental, the precarious and the misremembered, their work strives to archive, unfurl, make-altar-of and bring fantasy to the Blues of Black life and relation.

In the artist’s debut solo institutional exhibition at MCASB, Downey’s Orchid Blues crosses, circles around, and dwells in found, amassed, and preserved objects — known to be personally and communally dear. Across sculpture, installation, and image making, building materials, trash, junk, and the well-used, converge and deteriorate.

Downey’s art has been exhibited by HAIR+NAILS, Minneapolis; Aronson Gallery, New York; Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin; Engage Projects, Chicago; as part of Midway Contemporary Art’s Off-Site program; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles. They are the 2023 recipient of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Minnesota Art Prize, and are currently in residence with the Walker Art Center's Moving Image department.