Antonio Durao Is A Painter

Photography by Caleb Sugai.

I first became aware of Antonio Durao maybe seven or eight years ago, when he was wearing brown Dickies and a beanie and doing switch 360 flips on The Berrics.

You’re probably asking yourself why I was watching The Berrics in 2018. Well, because Antonio Durao was doing switch 360 flips on it. I just told you. Don’t be stupid. Since then, the pants have gotten looser and the hair has gotten longer, but the skating has remained. Over the years, Durao has been discussed at length in skateboardings message boards and coastal group chats in terms of capability and potential - even considered by many to be possibly the best skater alive. As a skater, I am fascinated by these discussions and engage in them often. As an art fan, I could honestly give a fuck. Who cares? A lot of people are good at skating. What else is this guy up to?

Some years ago, Antonio Durao took up painting in a serious way - or as serious as he will allow it to be, which is to say, precisely up to the point before it stops being fun. In a studio in Midtown Manhattan stacked upon pizza places, NYC Gift stores, and an exceptionally well-baked cookie spot that Durao swears by, we met the painter to discuss his creative pursuit.

How long have you been painting?

I probably started painting maybe three or four years ago?

Kind of new to the game. Were you drawing or anything before?

Yeah, I’m pretty new. I used to draw and paint in high school in art class, but then as an adult I felt kind of called to make a painting about something.

What was the thing?

It was a dove. I was tripping and was really lost in this one - it was a bad trip, and I asked for help, and this dove came flying in from the darkness and saved me from the bad trip, instantly I felt extremely at peace as soon as it landed on my hand and when I opened my eyes my hand was still in the position of having held this dove. So one day I was like, ‘oh I need to paint about this’. I think that that’s what lead me to paint, some things in your head can’t be photographed so painting was my way out.

The way that you talk about this, it sounds like there’s an impulse to capture images. Do you photograph a lot?

I don’t shoot a lot of photos - I mean these are more things that come from within. I could write about these things, too - it’s very personal. I don’t know how to explain it. Everyone has things that can’t be photographed but can only be shown.

This work is across a lot of styles, you’re kind of all over the place.

It is! It’s all over the place. I’m still exploring what I want to do. Everyone says that you have to stick to a certain style, but I would rather just explore and figure things out. I think that I go into waves, like each of these example paintings have other works that are in that style. Well, not the Spitfire wheel painting, obviously. But I like to draw a lot of vases in black and white, wavy things. I like to give dimension to things on a canvas.

Are you painting from reference? Or is everything coming from your noggin?

I sometimes use reference photos, or sometimes I’ll have these ideas written down. I started because I wanted to capture what I saw during  psychedelic trips, but then I also just had this book of random ideas. Cool concepts, or ideas that I like, so i’d write them down and now I’ve started to paint some of them.

When you say written, do you mean you will write down ‘vase in black and white’?

Sometimes it’s in words, but if there’s some idea that I can’t really explain in words, I’ll do a super tiny one minute sketch just to show what I am wanting to portray. Oh, this is my first oil painting.

A paint palette hand made by Antonio out of a skateboard deck.

Holy shit, my guy, that is a different thing right there.

Yeah, I’ve started this one in September. There’s certain things that I want to add, but I’m afraid to fuck it up.

How do you know when a piece is done?

Hmm. It’s never done! I think that it's when you get really bored of it and you can’t stand it anymore. It can be fear to fuck it up, but that’s also no way to live. I think I would rather fuck it up and do something that I intended to do.

What do you mean?

I’d rather fuck up a painting trying to do something that I originally wanted to do. It’s worth the risk, because it can come out really good or really bad, but if you’re painting in fear, that’s a bad state. It means you take your art a little too seriously, and I don’t think that art is supposed to be as serious as people take it. I mean, I do that too - I’m doing it now with this piece - but at the same time like, dude it’s paint on a canvas, you’re gonna die one day. You know what I mean?

Totally! So you’re not super precious about this stuff?

Sometimes I can be, but I try not to be. Some pieces I’m stoked on and want to take care of, but that shouldn’t hold me back from taking a risk and trying new things.

If you had to describe what you think you get out of making art, what would you say?

I wanna be able to express my ideas and feelings. I think that painting is a great outlet for putting your ideas out on a canvas without a lot of challenges. Like, if you’re making a piece of clothing, unless you’re doing your own cut and sew, you’ve got to talk to a bunch of production houses and plan it out six months in advance, but with painting, you can do it right away and get your idea out. It’s up to you. If you want to spend twenty four hours on a painting to get your idea across in one day, you can.I think that to me, painting is the easiest way to get ideas out of my head and have them be shown in a more understandable way.

Are you seeking for those ideas to be understood by you or by other people?

I mean I think it’s both. I like to be able to show people my intended idea and also let myself see it, and ask myself, ‘did I or did I not get my point across?’ I want it to come out in a way where if I looked at it and I didn’t make it myself, I would still understand it. It would make sense to me. It’s been pretty cool seeing people's reactions to your ideas.

I got tipped off to your painting by Sam Muller last year when he saw you up here working, and it’s been interesting to see how you’ve changed as a painter all the way to this piece.

Oh yeah, that one was from a photo of a guy skating with that beanie, and he had a cigarette in his mouth - he looked so sick, kind of rugged - so Philly, you know? I did that one in the back of the van. 

What?!

Yeah, cause we were doing a tour from New York to Jacksonville, so I was finishing up that Philly painting probably around Virginia or DC. I thought it was gonna be easier than it was.

Fuck no, dude! It’s a moving vehicle!

Yeah, yeah, I was getting all car sick in there. It’s probably the worst place to paint.

So this one you started last year, this one you did in a van in a couple of hours; what’s your time frame for each piece?

Hm… I think it changes piece to piece. I don’t spend a lot of time actively putting paint on a canvas. Like this oil painting, I probably only put in a week of coming in and working on it a few hours a day.

Well, I think that creativity happens at all times and only rarely occurs in the physical world. Like as a writer, a lot of my writing happens when I’m on the train or getting a coffee, and then it all pours out in the ten minutes in front of my laptop.

Yeah, totally. And paintings will sit for a while - I have paintings that I started two or three years ago that will probably never get done, and that’s okay because it’s supposed to be fun. Sometimes it’s just about feeling like you’re flowing while you’re painting. One day I got into a flow state with this painting and my homies wanted to leave and I was like, fuck, dude I could stay here for hours this is so fun I don’t wanna leave.

The way you talk about painting, it seems like you get a lot of satisfaction out of doing immediately and on your terms. It’s very similar to the career that you’ve made out of skating. You can just go out and skate immediately and on your terms.

I mean yeah, I like skating with other people, I wonder if painting with other people would be fun.

Team painting?

Yeah Or just painting in the same space as other people. We all skate together but it’s freeing to be able to express yourself while hanging out with your homies, maybe painting can be the same way.