GRANTS
- Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant, NY
- Michigan Council for the Arts Grant, MI
RESIDENCY FELLOWSHIPS
- Ucross Foundation, WY
- Niangua Colony, MO
SELECTED AWARDS
- First Prize, Festival of Arts, Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI
- Friends of Art Award, Muskegon Museum of Art, MI
- Best of Show, Michigan Foundation for the Arts, Battle Creek, MI
- Best of Show, Livonia Invitational, Livonia, MI
- Best of Show, Premier Collection, WGVU Public TV, MI
- Best of Show, Krasl Art Center, MI
- First Prize, Rivertown Artists Guild, Lowell, MI
FROM REVIEWS...
"Duren ballets in pictorial space." —Conrad Baaker, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, MI
"Semiabstract images seize the moment and are graced by directness and simplicity." —Sylvie Roder, Artweek
"His paintings embody the same thoughtful quietude as the man.. They harbor an underlying power of form and color that won't be ignored." —Kristin Casaletto, On The Town Magazine, MI
"...especially moving." —Jeff Abell, New Art Examiner, Chicago
"...modest, unaffected freshness." —Alan Artner, Chicago Tribune
"The work that shows him at his best is the kind that crosses those useless boundaries of representational and abstract." —Nathan Matteson, Newcity, Chicago
"An extraordinary artist whose works have immense popular appeal." —Judith Sobel, former director Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI
"His unerring placement of compositional elements seems inspired. His color sense is no less superb." —Roger Green, Grand Rapids Press, MI
"Duren's strength is to suggest the inexplicable ways in which nature resonates to the human condition." —Carolyn Loeb, Morning Sun, MI
"Duren's work is evidence of an artist whose heart and mind are both fully engaged and wonderfully integrated." —Mark Maher, Kalamazoo Gazette, MI
"My fingers itch to touch..." —Marilyn Andersen, Lake Michigan Coast Magazine, MI