Working primarily across painting, drawing and exhibition-making, my practice is inspired by interests ranging from biology and microscopy - to neuroscience and psychology. Located at the intersection of art and science, my artworks draw on the language of Abstraction, paired together with subject matter that has been informed by collective narratives and lived experiences of disease and illness. I am particularly interested in confronting the repercussions that emotional distress and physical violence have on human behaviour, thought patterns and other aspects of day to day life. Driven by an ongoing engagement with the poetics of materials and fabrication processes, my work offers an idiosyncratic portrayal of the microscopic cells that make up the basic structural and functional units of all carbon based lifeforms.

The act of collecting lies at the heart of my practice, which is informed by the accumulation of photographs, anatomical diagrams and archival material that ranges from molecular structures, graphs, and cellular imagery - to CT and MRI scans of my brain following an ABI that was incurred in 2015.Throughout the process I use a combination of brushes, sponges, drip bottles, rags and scraper tools to explore the relationship between micro and macro, where fractals repeat self-similarly. Rendered through the application of translucent glazes, my visual language uses contrasting colours, depth, texture and scale to depict biological matter – ranging from healthy to deteriorating – including magnified imagery of blood, skin, molecules and synapses. Consisting of intricate patterns, organic shapes and energetic line networks my practice offers a glimpse into the awe-inspiring world of microorganisms that forms, connects and surrounds all universal matter.

Sean McDowell (b. 1997) is an emerging German-born artist based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. He has he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture & Spatial Practice) from The Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne (2018), followed by a Bachelor of Fine Art (First Class Honours) from the same institution (2020). McDowell was selected for the 2023 Billilla Studio Residency Program through the Bayside City Council, and has been the recipient of numerous grants, including a City of Melbourne Annual Arts Grant (2025), a Fringe Fund Ralph McClean Microgrant (2023), a Kingston Arts Grant (2020), a City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grant (2020) and a City of Yarra Small Projects Grant (2022). In 2018, he was the recipient of the Perrin Sculpture Foundry Award, and has been a finalist in various prizes, including the Bayside Painting Prize, Bayside Gallery (2025), The Mary and Lou Senini Student Art Award, McClelland Gallery & Sculpture Park (2017), The Footscray Tertiary Art Prize (2017), and The Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Fellowship (2019) at The Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery.

Selected solo exhibitions include And the World Turns, Linden Projects Space (2024-5), Spectra, Lennox St, Gallery (2024), Backdown to Earth, @14 Langridge (2023), Bruise, Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space (2023), Organisms, Five Walls (2022) and In the day I dream of faraway places, Kingston Arts Centre (2021). His work has been included in group exhibitions including Seven Creatives, Bayley Arts (2025), Refuge, workshop, stage, site: Billilla Artist Studios 2023-23, Bayside Gallery (2023), Lifeforms, Lennox St. Gallery (2023), Shifting Forces, CAVES (2022), From Heart & Mind, The Dax Centre (2020), Extended Gestures Extended, Five Walls (2019) and Group Conversations: Australia’s Shame, George Paton Gallery (2017). His work is held in public, private and corporate collections throughout Australia, and internationally in USA, Singapore, Germany and The Netherlands.