"After many years of harnessing technique, pursuing picturing, following trends and restating history, I now acquiesce in a secondary role, within my purpose, to the painting's becoming what it wishes to. Painting is an experience based on the belief in my hand as a channel of the expression hidden in the materials that is unleased by painting itself in alignment with my life's deep psychological underpinnings."
- FRED DUIGNAN, Introduction to Slide Puzzle · The Last Environmental Game, Grid of 15 paintings, 2021
Originally from northern New Jersey, Fred Duignan, recieved a BFA and Graduate Certificate from University of California, Santa Cruz (1981, 82). He hastened back to New York City, where he dove into the East Village and New York Art Scene of the 1980's-90's. He had extensive solo shows and a role in many group exhibitions in NYC (Fashion Moda, 10th Street Gallery, Bill Bace, Blum Hellman, Asian American Arts Center, Grace Hartigan, AOT); in NJ (Farleigh Dickenson University, Paterson Museum); regionally (at the Stamford Museum; Mothership, Woodstock, NY; Green Kill, Kingston, NY); and abroad (Helsinki,Finland; Seoul, Korea). He wrote art criticism for Cover Magazine, NYC and for the NJ Herald and News and was for a number of years Curator of Contemporary Art at the Paterson Museum. All his life Duignan was an accomplished poet and wrote vivid poetry to accompany many of his art series, and in one case the poem was literally a part of his imagery in diptych form.
