Downs explores how landscapes are remembered and stored in the body, even long after we leave them. Growing up in southwestern Utah amidst layered rocks, deep canyons, and distant mesas, she translates both the vividness and impermanence of these deserts into large-scale paper installations. Handmade from diverse plant fibers, her large-scale, suspended works evoke memory, veils, and the haziness of perception, balancing material presence with fleeting transparency and light. They draw viewers into internal landscapes shaped by reflection and observation, where texture, scale, and sensation mirror desert surfaces and the passage of time.

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Downs received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from Utah Valley University in 2024 and is currently an MFA candidate at Clemson University, with an expected graduation date of May 2026. Her work has been exhibited nationally, with recent shows in the Clara M. Lovett Art Museum, the Gertrude Institute of Art, and the Utah Valley University Museum of Art. Downs has been the recipient of multiple awards, including Utah Valley University’s Outstanding Student Award for the entire Art and Design Department, was selected as an inaugural participant of the V. Douglas Snow Arts Mentorship Program in Torrey, Utah, and was the recipient of the Penland/Clemson University HEPP Scholarship.