Duncan Henry Figurski

Duncan Figurski is a painter, programmer, educator, and abstract computer. The artist and algorithm celebrate the obfuscation of legibility in joyous and optimistic terms - using abstraction as a playful rebellion against all those things that keep us disconnected from the void. His analogue paintings are templates for mischievous programs to dance and sputter around a central tome. His goal is to evoke what Deleuze and Guattari would call a “body without organs,” creating something that perpetually abstracts itself - forcing us to reconsider a hierarchy of meaning we have taken for granted yet concretely structures our thinking. His creation is a process of discovery - blending his backgrounds in painting, science, programming, and psychology - Duncan often considers his series to be free-flowing experiments that he studiously documents. The end product is not as important as the spaces between each work, and what that collective points towards.

Duncan teaches art and technology courses at Eugene Lang College and Parsons School of Design, has shown work at the Plaxall Gallery, the Gowanus Ballroom, and participated in the Pinea Linea de Costa Residency. He was one of the co-founders of Hidden Currencies Art collective, Hecatombe Magazine, and Fireplace 409 gallery. He has created pop-up installations around New York City, curating works like “Sacrifice with Zest”, “LiveStream // Fever Dream” and “Infinite Tundra // Home Shrine”. Duncan has produced theater works which have been shown at the Barbershop Theatre and created solo installations exhibited at Church Street School for Music and Art, and at Rockella Space. Coming from a background in Interdisciplinary Science, Duncan received his Master's Degree from NYU's ITP program, developing his thesis around the programmatic interpretation of graphic scores, and the use of AI to create “matrices of meanings” and embed them into his paintings. His teaching is closely intertwined with his creative practice, often consolidating the research he uses to explore his own work into lectures for his classes. Currently, he maintains a studio practice in Ridgewood, Queens, where he hosts the weekly critique group entitled “Destruction Junket.”