Sean Downey, co-chair of MIU’s Art, Consciousness, & Creative Practice department and associate professor of art, has just completed a five-week solo exhibition of new paintings and sculptures at LaMontagne Gallery in Boston. This was his third solo exhibition there.

Pictured above: Slow Learner, 2025, oil on panel, 36 x 48 inches, by Sean Downey

Entitled Motion Pictures, the exhibition opened on October 24, with an opening reception on November 7, and concluded on November 29.

LaMontagne Gallery was founded in 2007 “to create an environment in Boston for the display and sale of emerging contemporary artists.” It features visual, sound, and performance artists based in Boston and beyond.

“Solo exhibitions in contemporary art venues are important milestones for artists, not unlike publishing a book or having research included in a peer-reviewed journal,” Professor Downey says. “This show constitutes the last eighteen months of my studio practice, so it is particularly gratifying to have it on display in a major city and exposed to a national audience.”

The response has been very positive. “The opening and lecture were packed,” Professor Downey says, “and the show has reignited many correspondences and conversations with colleagues at other institutions.”

Next on the horizon? “More work!” he says. “I also hope to continue exploring disciplinary crossover in my practice and integrate more of this interdisciplinary approach into the curriculum of the courses that I teach at MIU.”

Click here to see more of the paintings included in the exhibition.

Click here for Professor Downey’s website.

About Sean Downey

Sean Downey received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and his MFA from Boston University. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Steven Zevitas Gallery (Boston) and LaMontagne Gallery. He has also been included in recent group exhibitions at Richard Heller Gallery (Santa Monica), Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston), the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA (Portland), the Leroy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University (New York City), LaMontagne Gallery, and Park Place Gallery (Brooklyn, New York). He received the Blanche E. Colman Award in 2013, a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in 2014, and was MacDowell Colony Fellow in 2015.