Artist Spotlight

	Christian Duran

Name:  Christian Duran

City:  I am currently residing in Miami.

Birthplace:  I was born in Miami as well.

Artistic Medium:  My current mediums are oil and acrylic paint.

How did you get started?
Shortly after receiving my BFA degree from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1998, I began my career as a studio painter, and progressively that dream is becoming more real every day.

Who or what are your influences?
My influences come from different places—for one, the amazing human body (anatomy and physiology). And secondly, botany and other sciences as they relate organic systems and bodies.

What inspires your work?
My work is greatly inspired by philosophy and the human psyche as they relate to themes of love, faith, life, and death.

How does Miami/South Florida influence your work?
The art making energy I experience here is extremely motivational, influential, and competitive. Contemporary art in Miami is becoming a place where you either get busy painting or get out. I love that kind of vitality. It's good for my soul.

How would you describe your work?
Visually, my work resembles a network of tree limbs and roots, veins and arteries, incorporated with the human anatomy. These images are revealed as connected, interactive, and interchangeable. I use these elements as a metaphor of the union between people and nature. Both plants and people have a circulatory system, which look and perform a similar function: to sustain life—one with blood and the other with water. I perceive these similarities as non-coincidental, but rather a universal symbol of life, life truths, as well as life paths. Through these works, I aspire to find my own poetry concerning the intangible self, as well as bring to mind the spirit of the human psyche.

What has been the most unusual reaction to your work from the public?
I used a pencil tree in one of my recent sculptures and apparently the sap is poisonous. Some viewers were a little worried and warned me as if it were some sort of omen.

What would you like to achieve as an artist?
I wish to achieve satisfaction, recognition, and get paid to do that which I would pay to do— painting.

Upcoming shows:
I have a very important exhibition coming up at the Polk Museum of Art () in Lakeland, Florida. It is a two artist show titled Views From Within: Christian Duran and Vickie Pierre. Vickie Pierre is the other artist and the show opens March 5 through May 14, 2006. The opening will be on Friday evening, April 21.

Where is your work available?
I am represented by Chris Ingalls at Ingalls & Associates, Miami, Florida, in the Wynwood District. In Miami my work is available through the gallery.