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.

Sean acknowledges the Wurundjeri and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which he lives and works. He pays his respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded.