/ PRESENTATION
Dead God, Thank You
Brad Downey
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UNDERGROUND & OVERGROUND
by Emanuela Mazzonis di Pralafera
… For Brad Downey, art is a means of creating a ruleless vocabulary composed of symbols, thoughts, actions, and artifacts that transform the ordinary into an allegory of human experience. Life is surrounded by objects that “decorate” our present, filling our spaces, an accumulation of artifacts whose value we often no longer remember. … Yet — asks the artist — what value do these objects hold in the face of earthly transience? Within this perspective, we must also interpret the new work conceived and produced for SPAZIOC21 on the occasion of the Fotografia Europea 2026 festival in Reggio Emilia: six paintings of six different trees derived from as many photographic shots. A symbolic content that alludes to the passage of time and the destiny of living beings. The project, now entitled Dead God, Thank You, originated several years ago through a series of encounters between the artist and the promoters of SPAZIOC21, was realized collaboratively between Italy and Slovenia. Downey’s underlying idea is to pay homage to the solemnity of trees — majestic sculptures fashioned by Mother Nature, which are born, grow, and die in a specific place. From that environment, trees draw vital sap, while at the same time they return life to it. … and what about ethics? … The title Dead God, Thank You reflects this tension: on the surface, it establishes a parallel between trees and God, but it also arises from a sense of guilt tied to consumption. “Working with trees has become a way to confront this contradiction and to assume responsibility for the materials I use, creating objects from scratch. Nature, in this sense, is not romanticized; it is something to negotiate with, to work alongside, and against which one must test one’s own ethics.” … Engaging with the landscape, he selects six varieties of trees native to that context (pine, cypress, wild cherry, ash, oak, and laurel), captures them in photographs, fells them, and reduces their vegetal remains to pulp through a mechanical process. From this transformation, he derives a felt of cellulose fibers, from which he produces a sheet of paper that appears as a chaotic forest of flat, flexible fibers layered upon one another, characterized by different tonalities, likewise, the six inks extracted from the maceration of the bark and used to paint upon the paper differ in hue and color, much like the DNA of living beings. The six trees are then printed with brush upon paper obtained from their very own epidermis, using a specially made machine. From bodies deprived of life, the artist recreates a new life cycle. Each work thus constitutes a unique combination of cellulose and liquid — the so-called “black liquor”, a viscous, dense fluid — which defines the essence of each tree, endowing every painting with a renewed vital dimension. Each artwork, in its delicacy and elegance, evokes the sublime quality of Romantic works and, in its elevated tone, becomes a symbol of eternity. … As the artist implicitly asks in the title of the work — which might be read less as a statement than as a question — life confronts us with existential inquiries that remain open to interpretation: Does God exist? Did God create the world, trees, and living beings? Did God create life and death? Is God dead?