The paintings of Dora Duran are an exponent of the high Modernist tradition that was part and parcel of what came to be called Abstract Expressionism. This movement has for so long been known for pure abstraction that one might lose sight of its origins in Cubism. Looking at Duran’s canvases, however, this Cubist origin duly comes to the fore. Duran is not only working within a cubist precedent, but she takes the gestural brushwork of abstraction, as well as the textured palette it offers, and creates paintings that everywhere verge of the figurative.
Duran’s painterly vocabulary is attuned to the terms and articulations of abstraction, yet the language she communicates with is wholly her own. The oil on canvas work Awaiting is a bold example of this. Through the seemingly violent brushwork, intimations of figures become apparent. These figures could be human or vegetable. In either case, the environing color scheme, which suggests the green shades of a garden as much as the flesh-tones of skin, ensures that viewers will look for objects forming out of wilding disorder.
