Threshold by Calie Durant

Acrylic on canvas
36" h x 48" w - unframed

Calie Durant is an abstract painter whose work bridges a lifelong dedication to visual communication with a sustained commitment to a practice shaped through layered inquiry and revision. She studied graphic design in art school before earning her BFA with a major in painting. Raised in Hawai‘i, she was drawn early to the relationships between color, form, and atmosphere, sensitivities that would later inform both her design career and her studio practice.

Before turning fully toward painting, Calie worked in branding and advertising as an art director, designer, and strategist in New York and San Francisco. She led creative teams and crafted cohesive visual systems across web, mobile, and print. During this time, she partnered with renowned clients including Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, Ogilvy & Mather, and Landor Associates. This background refined her approach to composition, structure, and visual clarity, elements that now underpin the disciplined yet expansive nature of her abstract work.

In 2021, Calie moved back to O‘ahu with her husband and two children. She now paints from her home studio in Honolulu, where a sense of rhythm, openness, and spatial awareness informs the ongoing evolution of her practice.

Threshold explores the moment of transition, where movement, energy, and stillness meet. Layers of deep blue, turquoise, and white move across the surface, creating the feeling of water in motion while intricate lines and organic patterns reveal what lies beneath.

The sweeping white forms suggest the edge of a breaking wave, while the softly layered lines below evoke the shifting ground beneath it. Together, these elements create a sense of being suspended between two places, between what is known and what comes next.

Threshold is a reminder that change often begins in the space between one moment and the next, where something is ending, something is emerging, and we are simply learning to move with it. - Calie Durant