The cycle of paintings collected in this exhibition represents the ultimate (but not definitive) outcome of the previous journey, a destination that does not forget what has been but presents itself through the mutations of its essence and form.

For these works, Duran drew inspiration from many sources, starting with the concept of reciprocity of the Confucian Golden Rule, which led him to work even more intensely on the idea of metamorphosis, developed through painting that, in a circular and continuous manner, transforms into its archetypal eternal return—moving from darkness to clarity, from obscurity to splendor.

These paintings lean towards abstraction, but the painting does not lose the power of language; instead, it engages in a secret dialogue where Heraclitus seems to meet Confucius, and where the brush immerses itself in the flow of poetic words—an paradoxical encounter where the verbal and the visual intertwine in a mysterious fusion.

The application of paint energetically, lightly, and rigorously supports the outcomes of this process, in a progression where the brushstroke abandons the tactile substance of chromatic matter and chooses a path of lightness and brilliance—pigments that shine with refined nonchalance, variations on metals, gold in its different declinations, and the marks of a silver tip.

Lorenzo Canova