Paul Durso’s Visual Art
In the visual arts, Paul has worked with photography, painting, graphic design, sculpture, and more.
Across visual mediums, the aim is to describe the search for beauty and nakedness through narrative form and texture, building worlds of hiding and imagination. Recurring visual motifs are forced flatness, natural vs. technological forms, and semi-enclosed architectural spaces.
Paul’s music posters have appeared in venues across Southern California, and his paintings have been exhibited at the Oceanside Museum of Art.
SELF PORTRAIT 2015. Acrylic painting on canvas, with bone, feathers, found pottery. 2018.
THE GLASS MENAGERIE - SCALE MODEL. Set design and scale model construction for a production of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie. foamcore, bristol, paper, pencil. completed under guidance from Andrew Layton. 2017.
CONCERT POSTER. Background graphic created by combining photos of natural textures and applying uniform digital distortion to the composition. Sigil Of Dragon logo is a custom typeface created with hand-drafted lettering. 11x17 and handheld printed copies displayed at record shops, bars, cafes, and venue as part of Sigil Of Dragon promotional campaign. 2014.
CONCERT POSTER. Background graphic created from a photoshoot at a Native American burial ground in the Florida Space Coast, with the intention of capturing obscured natural textures for graphic design use. Type processed with digital distortion to stand against the natural curved lines of the photo. 11x17 and handheld printed copies displayed at record shops, bars, cafes, and venue as part of None. promotional campaign. 2014.
DARK RIDE II - MURDER HOUSE. Abstract sculpture with prefab wooden house and acrylic paint. Designed for the prompt of disassembling a premade object and reassembling its components in a novel way, a prefab wooden dollhouse was along its vertical axis with a band saw, glued together, and painted as a new whole. Designed to express the forms, affectation, and directed movement of narrative architectural environment and themed attraction design. 2015.
CONCERT POSTER. Background graphic created from a photoshoot at a Native American burial ground in the Florida Space Coast, with the intention of capturing obscured natural textures for graphic design use. Type as per notes of client. 11x17 printed copies displayed at record shops, bars, cafes, and venue as part of promotional campaign. 2015.
DARK RIDE I - MURDER COASTER. Abstract sculpture with wood and fabrics. Designed to express the forms, affectation, and directed movement of narrative architectural environment and themed attraction design, historically referencing attractions including Pteranodon Flyers, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids: Movie Set Adventure, and Dueling Dragons. 2015.
CONCERT POSTER. Background image created from a staged photoshoot, designed to express grace and decay through curved linear forms and natural ornamentation. 11x17 and handheld printed copies displayed at record shops, bars, cafes, and venue as part of Sigil Of Dragon and Monarch promotional campaign. 2014.
CONCERT POSTER. Background graphic created by photographing stationary with type from Olivetti typewriter. Sigil Of Dragon logo is a custom typeface created with hand-drafted lettering, and is here processed to appear as an obscured apparition over the physical material. Created for social media distribution as part of Sigil Of Dragon promotional campaign. 2017.
JEANNE. Acrylic painting alla prima on textured paper stretched to board. 2018.
(Ripe) Triptych, acrylic paint on canvas with mixed media, rope, blood, gold plating. 2014.
SELF PORTRAIT 2018. Acrylic painting alla prima on canvas board, from scrying vision. 2018
CONCERT POSTER. Background created with Jon Lomberg painting from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Text design as per client. 2014.
PRODUCTION DESIGN. Live concert production design for Angry Dragon. Use of lights with motorized fans blowing paper lit with orange lights to simulate flickering firelight and fog machines. Only sources of light on stage are flame lights obscured through fog and tube amplifiers, creating movement and deep pockets of shadow and illuminating skin tones against black wardrobe. Bass drum graphic using logo design to mask flame texture. 2012.
ELEMENTAL TABLET & TABLET OF UNION. Enochian Elemental Tablets with Golden Dawn zodiacal attributions and English lettering built from foamcore, colored pencil, pen. Tablet of Union built from resin casting, mdf, acrylic and oil paint. Built for use in Enochian magick evocation by a private magickal group. 2018.
ENOCHIAN HOLY TABLE. Holy Table built from mdf and acrylic paint, with hand-drafted Enochian lettering. Built for use in Enochian magick evocation by a private magickal group. 2018.
MINI RAMP. 4ft mini ramp halfpipe with 6ft extension. 12ft wide. 10ft transition radius. Designed to mimic the old Encinitas ramp designed by Team Pain. Built for private facility. 2012.
TIKI BAR RESTAURANT DREAM. Sketch of Mashahiro’s, a tiki bar and restaurant from a dream. 2020
MAIN STREET FORMS. Digital drawing on iPad. a study and sketch of the figure-ground lines and forms of Main Street, U.S.A. and exercise to learn digital painting techniques. 2020
LOUVRE PALACE COUR NAPOLEAN REDESIGN. digital painting on iPad. an exercise to learn digital painting techniques. figure-ground sketch of Louve Palace and surrounding area, with redesigned elements to remove I.M. Pei’s anti-human architecture and furnish the Cour Napoleon with a café, playground, skatepark, variety of public seating, and WEDway PeopleMover as public transportation through the Louvre’s wings and to Notre-Dame, Musée d’Orsay, and Luxembourg Gardens. 2020