Richard Duarte Brown, known as Duarte, is a master artist with the TRANSIT ARTS Youth Arts Program and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s Art in the House program. For more than 30 years, Duarte has dedicated his talents to helping young people in Columbus, Ohio, through countless programs including CAPACITY (CAPA’s youth arts program), the Short Stop Youth Center, the King Arts Complex, Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s (and formerly GCAC’s) Artists-in-Schools program, GCAC’s Children of the Future, Ebony Boys, Art Safe, and VSA Ohio. Duarte has also worked as a high school art instructor at the Arts and College Preparatory Academy in Columbus. Currently, he serves as a resident artist for Whitehall City Schools and Berne Union Schools in the Village of Sugar Grove, Ohio. His murals can be seen throughout the city, bringing comfort and inspiration to countless viewers.

When the local news channels aired the L.A. riots in the 90s, Duarte’s mixed media paintings gravitated toward the medium of healing, comprehending the universal creative desire in everyone to heal, thus Duarte’s Human Series. Duarte’s current body of work evolves from this Human Series and reflects his deep dive into connecting to people through narratives, unveiling layers of personal development and stirring individual strength, wisdom, and courage. He encourages the innate creative voice in all of us that desires to rise, create, and heal. His work is a visual demonstration of ethnography that shows a quest for growth, provokes dialogue, ignites assurance, draws out brilliance, and impacts lifelong alumni of his creative influence.

Duarte was selected for the 2022 Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Fellowship, one of two programs created by the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Columbus Museum of Art to support African-American, professional visual artists and honor the legacy of the beloved Columbus artist and MacArthur Fellow.

Availability

Upon request

Video courtesy of “Broad and High” via YouTube.