“The abstract nature of my work is the result of this necessary back-and-forth with diverse and disparate materials, and paring down a complex and personal narrative into a form that can be embraced by a wide audience,” he said. Durow said his approach to working with varied materials aligns with the relationship the viewer has with his art pieces. And though his specialty is glass, he incorporates other materials into his exhibits, such as metals and clay. His works range from mixing-bowl size pieces and dozens of individual pieces as part of larger indoor exhibits to a 300-foot-long installation on a beach in Key West, Florida. From exterior and interior works to architectural creations, his work has been part of six solo exhibitions, he has more than 50 selected exhibitions and commissioned art installations to his credit nationwide, and he has appeared in nearly 30 publications since 1998.Īfter graduating from Anderson University in 1998, he earned his Master’s of Fine Arts degree from Tulane University, where he specialized in large-scale sculpture. “That shows me the University is invested in the glass program and art program as a whole, which is really important to me.”ĭurow is an accomplished artist in his own right. “Chico State has a new glassblowing facility, and that is really fantastic,” he said.
Having spent the last nine years as associate professor of art at Salisbury University in Maryland, Durow said the idea of teaching in California was extremely appealing to him-both for the natural beauty of the University’s setting and its Arts and Humanities Building.
In terms of explaining why that is? I still can’t.” Exterior works, like “Gerado,” give Durow the opportunity to work with different materials with less restriction on space.ĭurow will bring that wonder to Chico State this fall, along with a wealth of arts knowledge and expert analysis, as he begins teaching courses including glassblowing in the Department of Art and Art History. “It took me years and years and years to see ‘Starry Night’ in person-and I still respond to it the same way. Whether you zoom out or zoom in, there’s just so much going on,” he said. Van Gogh has one brushstroke with six colors in it-you can see them-and I have no idea how he did that. “There’s so much going on in just one square inch of that piece. “The teacher then held up Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’-I was awestruck and thought, ‘that’s what I want to do when I grow up,’” Durow recalled.Īdmitting he’s still blown away by the painting decades later, Durow finds it difficult to articulate how and why the piece touched him then and why it continues to resonate with him today. Squeezed into a chair designed for 8- and 9-year-olds, a teacher showed laminated images of famous art pieces to the class sitting at his feet on the floor, discussing each piece, its artist, and techniques used to produce the work. Steven Durow was a fifth-grader the first time a piece of art shook his world.
0 kommentar(er)
