Brian Dowdall was born in 1948 in Anaconda, Montana. He left home in his early teens, and for many years lead a nomadic life working as a jack-of-all trades - digging ditches, picking potatoes, tarring roofs, and working on a worm farm, to name just a few of the many jobs he held. He lived in railroad cards, caves and goat sheds. Eventually, he made his way to Florida where he has been living in the same beach house for the last fifteen years.

Dowdall is best known for his cardboard and sand paintings of animal spirits. His menagerie includes alligators, armadillos, possums, dogs, cats, and snakes of every description. He sets each animal in a luminous field, or celebratory “aura” of color; his palette comes from “the sun, moon, fire, earth, trees and water.”

Dowdall is represented by the Vanity Novelty Garden Gallery; Tyson’s Trading Company; American Primitive Gallery, Timpson Creek Gallery; Toad Hall; Galerie Monheur; Modern Primitive Gallery; Rising Star Gallery; Clary Sage Gallery; and Ginger Young Gallery.