Weightless is Jill Downen's first solo exhibition with Nunu Fine Art New York - as well as Downen's first solo exhibition in New York City. Downen recently participated in an Art Omi Residency and told students that the experience led to the exhibition opportunity.

"I've been quietly drawing with plaster and concrete these past six years while forging new ground in defining drawing as an action and object. At Nunu Fine Art New York, I invite viewers to find respite from an uneasy culture to embrace a slow time for seeing and reflection before returning to the speed of life," Downen said of Weightless.

"The creative process involves ‘not knowing’ - a pathway that tells me I'm somewhere, but I'm unfamiliar with exactly where that is. I am in a state of being. The space holds a palpable presence. It feels like mist, a vast distance, breath, light resting in the air – weightless," Downen said.

Refined by decades of work with large-scale sculptural installations, Downen's "drawings" echo their architectural interventions through a reduced and sophisticated color palette, unconventional techniques, and their seasoned skills with plaster, concrete, lapis lazuli, and gold leaf. Each artwork is made with lath-and-plaster or metal mesh and concrete, evoking the traditional wall construction methods with common building materials.

This reference to building alludes to Downen’s longstanding interest in architectural spaces and their psychological nature. A critical event in their formative years - a lightning strike to the family home - imprinted a heightened awareness of the body, architecture, and temporality that would, in time, inform the core of their artistic practice.

Downen mines their own emotional capacities to draw out the materials’ potential, resulting in unique plaster textures and smooth concrete surfaces interrupted by discerning lapis lazuli inlays and gold-leafed contours emerging from the grayish-whitish ground base.