Creating art for me is a journey of self-discovery and healing. Every brushstroke is an act of courage, a manifestation of the emotions I feel deep within. As I work, I am transported to a place of calm and serenity, where I can confront the demons of my past and turn them into something beautiful.
I remember feeling lost and disconnected for much of my life, as if I were searching for my own place in the world. My art became a beacon of hope, a way for me to reclaim my power and find meaning in a world that often felt meaningless.
The creation of my "Foundation" series was a cathartic experience, a way for me to delve deep into my own emotions and build something new from the wreckage of my past. With each painting, I confront my fears and insecurities, channeling them into something raw and powerful. They are a testament to the strength of my spirit, a visual representation of my journey towards self-acceptance and self-love.
I want others to see themselves in my work, to feel the emotions that I have poured into each piece, and to know that they too can find meaning and beauty in their struggles. By sharing my story, I hope to inspire others to embrace their own journey towards healing and self-discovery, and ultimately, to trust in their own foundation.
Contemporary visual artist and therapist Michael Duryea believes in exploring the unique vulnerabilities that make us who we are. His life and work are driven by an insatiable interest in the perceived flaws and cracks in the foundations from which we grow into ourselves. Evocative and often melancholic, his textural artworks exude an underlying strength: Though the works appear fragile, they are not. Through decades of anxiety and depression, Duryea struggled to balance between emotional poles without being consumed by one feeling or another. “You can be lost in despair and still hold room for hope,” he says. “There’s a beautiful tension balancing those opposites, and much of my work is an attempt to demonstrate the strength and beauty of that tension—a reflection of how I learned to hold two opposing feelings at once.”
Born on a farm in rural Washington and raised primarily by his mother and grandmother, Duryea wasn’t exposed to metropolitan art culture growing up. Instead, he immersed himself in nature, finding inspiration in the varied textures and shades of the fields surrounding his childhood home—sources that still serve as inspiration for his tactile, earthy paintings today. In high school he fell in love with ceramics, working with his hands to form shapes from wet clay, but was kept from pursuing his interest by the rigid gender stereotypes of his rural locale and conservative Christian upbringing. “I thought art was for girls, not for me: It was a world I could never be part of. As a gay child trying to avoid discovery, I shied away from what I loved for a long time because of those stereotypes.”
At 20 years old, after decades fraught with shame and fear, Duryea came out to his mother and later to his grandmother. His mother’s acceptance came as a relief, but his grandmother’s critical response opened a rift in their relationship that never fully healed. “It was hard for her to understand: Her religion got in the way,” he says. “When she passed, there was still a lingering distance.” Dealing with complicated emotions surrounding her loss, Duryea spent much of his 20s searching for meaning, trying to build a life that matched who he truly was. His path led him back to art. To channel the pain and process the complexity of his feelings, he began experimenting with mirrors and textured pottery, incorporating visceral, gritty textures like sand, pebbles, and coffee grounds into acrylic paint to create uniquely tactile, sculptural pieces. He was learning to use his hands to carve out a physical space—a safe place where he was free to be his full, flawed self. Like emotional-topographical landscapes, his paintings play with depth and density, resulting in varied levels of intensity and surfaces resembling cracked pottery.
Duryea sold his first piece of art in 2017, around the same time, his burgeoning interest in therapy was challenging his belief in facing problems alone. He found hope in the process of problem-solving with others, inspired by positive examples of conflict resolution and armed with coping mechanisms for panic, self-judgment, fear, and anxiety. He sold art to support himself through school, where he earned a master’s degree studying Marriage and Family Therapy at Antioch University. While art allowed him to communicate deep, internal emotions without words, therapy taught him the communication tools needed to nourish healthy relationships.
In April 2021, Duryea opened his own private practice, aptly named Foundations Healing, where he specializes in working with couples in the LGBTQIA+ community. Fueled by a profound desire to be understood, both his art and his therapeutic work help others find visibility, understanding, and true belonging in a world that doesn’t always feel welcoming.
Biography by Anna Elise Anderson.