Originally a native of north central California, Duren attended the San Francisco Art Institute in the early 1970s, where he pursued the genre of plein air realism.  During his time in California, Duren was also influenced by the San Francisco Bay area abstract expressionists of the 1950s, such as Richard Diebenkorn, Walt Kuhlman, Elmer Bischoff, and David Park.  In the mid-1980s, Duren began to experiment with abstraction, translating natural spaces into forms, lines, and color fields, altering perspectives and shifting spatial planes to create abstract work that was still strongly connected to the genre of landscape painting. 
      In this current show of his most recent work, Duren continues to present abstract and semi-abstract paintings inspired by landscapes; however, with a thematic twist.  In September 2001, following an opening for an exhibition of his work in San Francisco, Duren acquired a 1953 Chevy and began a three-week road trip across the western U. S., ending with the return to his current home in Michigan.  For Duren, the car and the trip, which coincided with his 53^rd birthday, served as a tribute and a re-connection to a time in his life and to a group of painters (the Bay area abstractionists) that continue to affect and inform his work.
    Throughout the trip, Duren captured the images he saw via plein air realism.  Upon his return, he used the paintings produced during the trip as inspiration for the abstract work, which makes up a majority of the current show.  A few examples of the plein air landscapes produced during the trip will also be on view.  In addition (traffic permitting), Duren plans to park the '53 Chevy in front of the gallery during the opening as a memento of the trip.
     Duren's work has been exhibited in museums, art centers, and galleries throughout the U. S.  His paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Yergeau Musee International d'Art Quebec, the Muskegon Museum of Art, the U.S. Embassy-Ethiopia, Dennos Museum (Traverse City, MI), Grand Valley State University, Austin Peay State University, and over 60 foundations and corporate collections.  In 1994, a 10-year retrospective of his paintings was exhibited at four Michigan museums, and an early 2000 exhibition at the Urban Institute of Art in Grand Rapids featured a series of paintings completed in 1999 while on a return pilgrimage to California.  Duren has also recently had gallery exhibitions in Santa Fe and San Francisco.