DURANT THOMPSON
Assistant Professor of Art
Sculpture

MFA, Sculpture, Louisiana State University
BFA, Sculpture, The University of Tennessee
email: durant@olemiss.edu

I am originally from Connecticut but grew up mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1997, I received a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and in 2001 I earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. A couple of years after graduate school, I moved to New Jersey to construct sculptures at The Johnson Atelier School of Technical Sculpture. I spent my days building monumental bronze statues as well as modern sculptural designs in various other media. After two years at the University of Southern Mississippi, I joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in the fall of 2005.

I have been involved with sculpture since 1992 when I first stumbled into the department at UTK. I have never looked back. Images from the early nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution and the Middle Ages have fueled the creation of my work for years. The designs of old machinery, vehicles, and weapons have fascinated me since I was a boy. Working from found objects, historical references, and childhood memories, I cast, fabricate, and assemble pieces into a new existence so that they can be viewed in a new light.