Arthur Dworin

The organic and geometric shapes that have long populated Arthur Dworin’s work are raised off the surface now and coated with a high iron or bronze content patina that he then oxidizes to produce a rich rust or green patina. This he juxtaposes with bands and fields of brilliant color. Peter Selz, the former MoMA curator of painting and sculpture and one of Dworin’s collectors, has said that “Dworin’s paintings are endowed with an original sense of sonorous color. Abstract as they are, they bring a new sense of visual order to organic forms of nature.” Dworin attended the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and received a scholarship to the Art Students League in Woodstock. After painting in Zacualpan, Mexico, he qualified as member of the United Scenic Artists Union, where he became skilled in a host of techniques that have been invaluable to his personal art. While painting sets for theater and film, he used materials in an alchemical way. Often he had to make something look as if five layers of paint had peeled off a rusting surface. But in his own painting, he literally experiments with chemical reactions and effects on the surfaces rather than just painting them. Like Kandinsky, whom he admires, Dworin improvises with forms that resonate musically with his own spiritual explorations. As he puts it, Dworin hopes that, “the spirit in these works will act as a key to awaken what is already deep within the observer, anew with each viewing, bringing a greater awareness of our inner and outer universes.”