Josephine Durkin

Associate Professor

Josephine Durkin's research and studio practice has involved the creation of drawings, videos, sculptures, and large-scale, interactive and kinetic installations that personify recognizable or manipulated objects and materials. These are then used to suggest, mimic, invite or isolate human gestures, activities and relationships. Her drawings and paintings are generated by her object making. The leftover studio residue from the process of making her sculptures is digitally photographed, printed onto heavyweight paper and used as source material for drawings and paintings.

Josephine is an Associate Professor of Art at Texas A&M University-Commerce, where she teaches 3-D Design and Sculpture. She is a member of the graduate faculty and runs the Graduate Seminar on rotation. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at the Dallas Contemporary in Dallas, Texas, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas, The Front Gallery in New Orleans, Louisiana, Metro Space in Richmond, Virginia and the Ulrich Museum in Wichita, Kansas.

Recent group exhibitions include those at the Dallas Contemporary in Dallas, Texas, the University of Texas at Dallas, Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Florida, Brand 10 in Fort Worth, Texas, Lohin Geduld in New York City, New York, Eyedrum in Atlanta, Georgia, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, and Kunstraum Innsbruck in Austria. She was a visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, Sam Houston State University, University of North Texas, Wichita State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. She was a guest artist for the McKinney Avenue Contemporary MAC PAC talks, the Perspectives talks at the Dallas Contemporary and a panel member for Texelectronica (SPIN), an international symposium on art, culture and technology held at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. More recently, she was interviewed by Meghen Hendley and was featured on NPR's “The Front Row.”

Josephine holds a BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University. She has also studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and the Lorenzo de Medici School of Art in Florence, Italy. Before joining the Department of Art at Texas A&M University-Commerce, she taught drawing and woodworking classes in Virginia and Connecticut and then worked as a sculptor and set designer at The Puppet Company in Glen Echo, Maryland. While at Yale, she worked with Natalie Jeremijenko and members of the Yale Engineering Department on the Feral Robotic Dog Project.