Raul Dorn

Artist Statement Raul Dorn

When attempting to explain my visual work I find focus at the core of a continuum of searching for personal truth and divine spirit through the process of painting. I am interested in that which lies beyond behind and beneath the perceived visual realm of experience. My goal is not to replicate the visual environment or portray nouns, but attempting to discover what is not visible through the creative act. My process often begins with quickly paced sessions of automatic improvisations to activate the surface, to call forth an unfolding event that has no preconceived destination. The process then slows down to a more reflective stage as I begin to discern what arrives; clarifying emerging shapes and forms, adding, subtracting, following my gut, trusting intuition, looking for the whisper of a narrative. Composition is at the core of the push and pull, the arriving and departing of imagery, layer after layer. Areas begin to connect to one another as references to the landscape or the human figure often arrive. Abstraction thus suits my quest to locate the spirit of subject, visually manifesting the undercurrent of the subconsc...

Las Cruces artist and arts educator Raul Dorn began his formal art exploration at the University of New Mexico in 1977 after being fully seduced with the creative process in his high school art classes. He studied Ceramics with Roger Sweet and poetry with Robert Creely as an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico, completing a BFA in Studio Arts at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Dorn’s central focus at NMSU was in drawing and performance art. He presented five major public performance pieces through the sculpture program which incorporated elements of theater, music, dance, sound collages and visual imagery. Raul was the music director and program director at KRUX radio on campus for several years, and began his exploration into song writing and performed in several local bands including the seminal local punk band Anxiety of Silence.
Mr. Dorn’s innate desire to be of service and to work in the visual arts led him into the field of arts education, completing a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction in 1988. Dorn retired from public school teaching at the secondary level after 26 years in the classroom in 2014. He was awarded the annual Arts in Education Award by the Las Cruces Dona Ana Arts Council in 2004, and ...

Raul Dorn
b. 1956, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Solo Exhibitions
2020 Lustrate, Mandrake Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2019 America: Purge, Art Obscura, Las Cruces, NM
2017 Berkshire Hathaway, Las Cruces, NM
2014 am/pm, Unsettled Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2012: Seasons Out of Order, Unsettled Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2011 Shelter from the Storm, Unsettled Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
Beyond, Behind, Below, Matrix Fine Art, Albuquerque, NM
2009: Zen Arcade, Unsettled Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2007: Gas Food & Lodging, White Raven Studio Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2006: Late Night Ragas, White Raven Studio Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2004: Impulses, New Mexico State University Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
Spring Preview, Conti’s, Las Cruces, NM
2002: Seeing Through Smoke, Las Cruces Museum of Art, Las Cruces, NM
2001: Silence Sound Silence, Corbett Gallery, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
1999: Introspect, Artists Wall Gallery, Boise,ID
1998: Recent Paintings, Nabes Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
1987: BFA Exhibition, Corbett Gallery, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
Group Exhibitions
2018 Here & Now, Las Cruces Museum of Art and NMSU Art Gallery, Las Cruces, NM
2017 Inspiration: Art Educators of New Mexico, NM Cancer Center Gall...