Staff Spotlight: Robin Durand, Fine Artist

In our new Staff Spotlight series, we’re pulling back the curtain on the talented artists, artisans, and craftspeople who make up our crew. Our team is a gumbo pot of creativity: painters, sculptors, woodworkers, fiber artists, costume designers, metalsmiths, actors, musicians, and the list goes on. If you can dream it up, chances are we’re already doing it in our free time, too. That’s what makes us so good at our day jobs as custom experiential fabricators.

The same imagination that fuels our personal projects drives the magic we create for our clients. We understand the importance of fidelity to artistic vision. Fabrication is a form of storytelling, and you can’t tell a good story without getting the details right. Every piece we craft is infused with the utmost care, creativity, and focus it takes to bring a vision to life.

Each month, we’ll shine a light on one of our team members—their inspirations, their after-hours projects, and the creative spark they bring to both their life and our shop floor. Because behind every masterpiece is a person with a story worth sharing.

Meet Robin Durand, fine art painter and fearless leader of the Downtown FabWorks Finishing Department.

As Finishing Department Head, Robin Durand leads a talented team of scenic artists who are responsible for honing the final details on fabricated elements. The team collectively has decades of experience working with a wide variety of products, surfaces, and techniques. To put it simply, if something needs to be sanded, painted, plastered, glazed, shaped, or anything in between, they’re guaranteed to know the best way to make it happen.

Robin’s journey as a fine painter began long before the days of Downtown FabWorks. His father taught him how to draw and paint during his childhood in Hawaii, and by the age of nine, Robin was selling his work at Kawaihae Harbor for just a dollar apiece—a humble start to what would become a lifelong passion. Over the years, he sharpened his skills through college, graduate school, and under the mentorship of Mississippi artist George T. Thurmond, who introduced him to color study.

"My painting is primarily about sight," Robin explains. "I don’t try to paint a ‘believable’ landscape or still life. Rather, I build a new vision that drops the conventional presuppositions about the nature of the seen."

Color, for Robin, is its own deep terrain to explore. He studies how light, space, and form transform color into something alive and relational.

"People often ask me, ‘Do you paint what you see?’ or ‘Do you paint what’s really there?’ For me it’s hard to say what I see. If I’m reading I see words, but if I’m looking I see a page." Robin says. "What we see is guided by how we’re thinking and what is important to us. The gravest error is to assume we are aware of all that vision has to offer."

To find out more about Robin’s artwork or to inquire about pricing, visit RobinDurand.com.

Interested in finding out how the creative minds at Downtown FabWorks can help you create unforgettable experiences for patrons, guests, and clients? We partner with our clients to design and fabricate immersive experiences, themed environments, and more. Visit our website to see how we can bring your vision to life.