Duane Toops

Artist Statement

Through collage I try to examine the fragments, fractals, and facets of the human experience. All the seemingly discordant parts, all the disconnected aspects, joy and sorrow, presence and absence, memory and longing, selfhood and identity, hope and despair, they all connect. They all cohere.

Biography

I fell in love with visual art at an early age through drawing and comic books. I was drawn to graphic elements. When I first encountered Jackson Pollock's work I realized how powerful art could be, that it could say so much, so deeply. With only texture, and color, and shape. I knew then that I wanted to be an artist, but painting was a language I could never quite learn to speak. It wasn't until I found my way into collage that I discovered how to access my creative voice and how to incorporate all the aspects of the things that drew me to art in the first place.

Exhibition History (CV)