Duarte is Minority Scholar in Residence

Date: 9/25/06
Contact: Kathy Beal

Illinois State University will host painter, printmaker and muralist Hector Duarte as the October Minority Scholar in Residence. Duarte will deliver a public lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 17, at 3:30 p.m. in room 151 of the Center for the Visual Arts building. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Duarte was born in Caurio, Michoacan, Mexico. He studied mural painting at the workshop of David Alfaro Siqueiros prior to moving to Chicago in 1985. Duarte has participated in the creation of more than 45 murals. He has exhibited his paintings and prints in solo and collective shows at such venues as the School of the Art Institute, the State of Illinois Gallery, the Chicago Historical Society, the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and Casa Estudio Museo Diego Rivera in Mexico.

Duarte has received a number of awards, including a 1995 Chicago Bar Association Award for best work of public art and a 1994 NEA project grant. Duarte is the co-founder of the Julio Ruelas Print Workshop in Zacatecas, Mexico, La Casa de la Cultura in Zamora, Mexico, and Taller Mestizarte in Chicago. He has taught mural painting and printmaking in the Chicago area since 1990. Duarte is a roster artist for the Illinois Arts Council's Arts-In-Education Residency Program and has worked with Gallery 37, Urban Gateways and the Chicago Public Schools, among others.

As part of the Chicago Public Schools' World Languages Program, Duarte taught at Ray Elementary and Herzl Elementary schools leading five classes of diverse students who produced five murals and leading African-American first and second graders in printmaking projects and creating a collective crayon mural. At both schools, students learned new vocabulary in Spanish as part of the project.

Duarte said, "Mural painting is an excellent artistic expression for schools, neighborhoods and communities. Students' interest in other subjects is piqued as they learn to paint. Choosing a mural theme requires knowledge of history or current events, and enlarging images to mural proportions or calculating angles of perception is math in practice. Murals add life to the urban landscape, motivate us to appreciate art and inspire people of all ages."

Sponsored by the Student Affairs, MECCPAC (Multi-Ethnic Cultural and Co-Curricular Programming Advisory Committee), the School of Art and Normal Editions Workshop, Duarte's residency will include classroom discussions; interacting with students, faculty and staff; and a collaborative print project.