Stephen Durkee
Stephen Durkee was born in 1938 in Warwick, New York. He moved to New York City in the late 1950s where he began learning about art and painting, and had a studio downtown near Robert Indiana and Red Grooms. Early on he was recognized as an artist of common objects, but by the early 1960s he had begun to turn toward abstractions. Durkee’s work that was shown in Ann Arbor differs from other Pop artists of the time in his use of dull colors instead of bright bolds, and his paintings also well worn, scuffed surfaces. Inclined toward nostalgia, Durkee said that Pop Art “was an attempt to reach a place of understanding with myself and my relationship with a civilization which often revolts me” (Swenson 1964).
In the 1960s and 70s, Durkee was a member of USCO, an experiential art group that created sound and light performances that mimicked the intensity of LSD trips. Durkee felt that art should overwhelm the audience, in his words, “to break through that linear time and space dimension so that you can go someplace else” (Oren 2010). Durkee was also involved with spiritualist Baba Ram Dass in the publishing of Be Here Now. Later in life he became an adept of Sufi Islam and is now a teacher and leader.
- Sheila Snyder
