Clyde Downs is an abstract painter from Natchitoches, Louisiana. His work is a distillation of landscape into an abstract and emotional response to nature. Mr. Downs is a retired art educator having served for 30 years as a Professor of Painting and Printmaking at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. He has a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from Louisiana College and a M.F.A. in painting and printmaking from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. He has exhibited nationally and has works in both public and private collections. “Painting for me is journey of discovery, it is a response to the natural world and the expression of that world through abstracted form. The elements of art serve as a means of transforming the physical encounter of landscape into an visual form that serves to reflect the spiritual nature of that encounter.”