Jose Duran
"Cándida", 2021
Watercolor and acrylic on paper
30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
Courtesy of the artist

Selected by Priscila Hudgins

Jose Duran is a painter, designer, and sculptor, born in the Dominican Republic in 1979. Creating fantastical worlds of cosmopolitan opulence and sumptuous, dangerous foliage, Duran’s practice is anchored in extensive research of Black people’s practices of survival, celebration, vengeance, sabotaje, and aspirational desires. Delicately wielding masterted techniques and whimsical sleight of hands, the artist creates marbled textures and mottled strokes that mirror the excess of his compositions. Drawing from baroque and rococo interiors to create scenes of architectural lavishness and femininity, Duran designs complex compositions that compel the eye to travel and anchor the work in whimsy and play. Duran places Black feminine figures at the center of his worldbuilding as a reclamation of Black women’s contributions to European markers of taste and the ties between Black colonial labor, in particular Black feminine labor, and European wealth. By fabulating a visual world of fantasy, Duran retrospectively places these women at the center of lavish interiors, as they reap the fruits of their labor. Jose Duran was born in the town of Moca in the Dominican Republic, where he lived and studied until he migrated to the United States in 1995, at age 16. Duran’s paintings are an ode to the legacy of his mother, who found immense pleasure in hosting soirées for other women. Duran’s mother worked as a hairstylist out of their Bronx apartment, and on any given day there were dozens of women shuffling in and out of their home, imbuing in the artist a taste for feminine cosmopolitanism and beauty. When they would travel back to the Dominican Republic, their home would be filled with guests from all parts of town. For the artist, painting scenes of Black women in opulent interiors is an ode to the dreams, hopes, and aspirational desires of his mother, who covered their beds in faux satin and draped the windows with opulent curtains, in order to create a vision that evoked baroque salons. 

Jose Duran began painting after traveling to spend time at the Black Rock residency, founded by his close friend and collaborator Kehinde Wiley. Duran’s vision has been cultivated from years of partnerships with renowned fine artists and has culminated in a unique and expansive artistic practice.