He spent a few months in Barcelona and Madrid, followed by Paris,[3] where he lived for three years studying printmaking at Stanley William Hayter's legendary Atelier 17.
[4][5][6][7] In 1965, Downey traveled to Washington, D.C., at the invitation of the Organization of American States to present a solo show of his work.
[1][10] In New York, Downey would become involved with the groups Radical Software and Raindance collective, both of them early proponents of using video for artistic and political means.
They reflect not only his “sureness of hand,” as curators David Ross and James Harithas noted,[17] but also his compelling ideas and visions, and they reveal a sustained practice of drawing over a lifetime.
The two series stress Downey's preoccupation with political discourse, the self, the history of art, Western civilization, and Latin American identity.
[47][48] The first complete screening of the VTA video-installation was in the exhibition Landscape Studies in Video curated by David Ross at the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1975.