Baker Artist Portfolios

Andrea Downs 

she/her

Andrea is a social practice and mixed media artist and educator who has been teaching art in public and independent schools since 2004. She earned her BA and MA in Art Education summa cum laude from The Ohio State University. Central to her work is the exploration of identity and the value of relationships and community. She has exhibited solo shows at The Mint Museum, Center for the Arts Perimeter Gallery, Winthrop University, UNC Charlotte, and C3 Lab and worked in partnership with a number of community organizations, independent artists, and institutions. She has been the recipient of grants and awards for both her studio and teaching practice including a HUG Grant, Cultural Vision Grant, Social Impact Grant, Free Fall Baltimore, Teacher of the Year, and the Blackwell Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. She lives with her husband and two children in Baltimore, where she is the middle school art teacher at the St. Paul’s School for Boys, MS Arts Department Chair, and the Director of TSPS Galleries and Exhibitions.

Artist Statement

I am a social practice and mixed media artist. Through my work, I observe, respond to and amplify personal and collective stories with an emphasis on women’s experiences and the value of relationships and connectivity. I use found and personal heirlooms and objects, depictions of nature, text, and symbolic imagery to create work that explores identity, sense of place and belonging. Some of my work focuses specifically on questioning the ever-present and harmful systems of power and misogyny that impact my life and continues to threaten the freedoms and liberties of all women living in the United States. In tribute to many of the hundreds of women who continue to connect through my ongoing participatory visual storytelling movement, Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry; I created the Balsa Butterflies–a series of 76 painted and printed wood panels in 2022. Each butterfly honors one of many women and nonbinary people who have stood next to me and each other in community. 

In my recent work, I am exploring and making connections between themes that I have been addressing in my artwork since 2016: identity, community care, and social justice. In “Refusing to Give Up Hope” and “Finding Liberty: A portrait of my daughter,” I am connecting the dots between the vulnerable feelings that I experience daily as a teacher, woman, and mother at the hands of harmful systems of power and a culture that continues to accommodate violence. While these works required a good bit of reading and research about gun control and the history of abortion laws in our country, they were born out of personal frustration with how we (as a culture) fall short when it comes to protecting women and children. Political leaders are not doing enough if our lives and liberties are consistently threatened in the places in which we are told that we should feel the most safe–our homes, our schools, and our own bodies. 

In another recent work, “Lessons from Eve: A reimagined origin story,” I am offering questions and new perspectives about our history. What if we looked at where we were created from a woman’s perspective? Or at the very least a perspective that doesn’t shame women and create negative stereotypes about women’s involvement in the creation of human life.  What if we considered the research that tells us that women might have been our earliest storytellers by painting and printing with their hands in the prehistoric caves in France? 

And, what if we use all of this to inform how we raise and educate our children?

Image below:

The Balsa Butterflies–76 painted and printed wood panels honoring and celebrating important women in my life.

Linocut, watercolor, pen, 76 - 4"x4” panels

January 1 - March 15, 2021

The panels were gifted to each woman and sent to them through the mail beginning on January 1, 2022, one year to the day from when I started creating them.

The poster was designed by my good friend and artist, Karen Spears (Butterfly #1 - The Red-Spotted Purple).