Bio

Bio

Douglas Leonard Czor

Doug Czor was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in May of 1947.  Czor was an artist “from the beginning”.  At 3 years old, his favorite toy was modeling clay.  He sold his first sculpture, a ceramic bust, at 16 years old.  During his early years, he was building and flying balsawood airplanes and homemade rockets.  He was completely fascinated with the biological sciences.  His first love was sculpture and being creative, but a strong interest in science delivered him into a geology career. 

Doug Czor Childhood home
Doug's Childhood Home, 1950
Young Doug Czor
Young Czor experimenting

Many of his relatives that lived during the 1800 – 1900s were commercial artists.  They were landscape painters, a cinematographer, a decorative iron worker, and even a Furrier Couturier in St. Petersburg, Russia who escaped the revolution and arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Czor transitioned upon arrival in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1985, from a scientist in geology to full-time sculptor.

Czor loves to combine the creativity of both Art and Science.  Czor’s first commercial art business produced electrodeposition copper bas-relief panels for the Santa Fe custom furniture business.  These bas relief panel creations led to his first public art commission in 1991 of two copper panels for the city office buildings in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Furniture bas-reliefs by Doug Czor
Electro-formed copper bas-relief panels
M100 spiral Galaxy

Czor was commissioned in 1997 by Air Force Research at Kirkland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico, to create a 7′ x 7′ wall-hung sculpture titled, “M-100 Spiral Galaxy in Virgo”.  This sculpture combined diffraction grating film, negative space painting, and hammered aluminum panels.  Czor chose the M-100 Spiral Galaxy because it was the first celestial object that Hubble Space Telescope focused on to test its repair by an Air Force Shuttle mission.  Czor wrote in his notebook, “When I sculpt with materials from the Space Age, I somehow feel closer to the mysteries of the universe and that very large scale of events.”

In 2001, Czor was commissioned by Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) to create an edition of two, 6 ft. in diameter bronze bas-reliefs of the Bernalillo County seal.  A few years later, Bernalillo County commissioned two more emblems.  For the last two in the series, Czor chose the type of  epoxy-fiberglass used in experimental aircraft.

Bernallilo Co Seal by Doug Czor
Bernalillo Co. bronze seal; M-100 Spiral

During the Fall of 2003, Czor’s public art projects landed him in Roswell, New Mexico where he designed and helped  construct, “Reaching for The Stars”, 35 ft. in height, painted steel towers that held between them an 18 in. in diameter stainless steel sphere.  This nationally recognized sculpture was commissioned by the State of New Mexico and is located at Eastern New Mexico University in Roswell, NM.

Galileo's Library by Doug Czor
Galileo’s Library

In 2004, the Bernalillo County Courthouse Art Collection purchased from Czor a 4 ft. x 4 ft. diffraction grating sculpture, titled, “Galileo’s Library”.  The sculpture is composed of four diffraction grating panels in the configuration of a window –  Galileo’s window to the universe.  The artwork addresses the present day struggle of principles analogous to Galileo’s freedom campaign for Science while he was under house arrest and confinement.

In 2005, Czor created “One Wind” for The Festival of Cranes at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.  “One Wind” was commissioned by the New Mexico Art in Public Places Program.  The 7 ft. in height work is composed of stacked flagstone, topped by a painted steel eclipse with three whooping cranes. This majestic sculpture is a memorial to the last whooping cranes that Czor witnessed wintering in New Mexico.

One Wind by Doug Czor
"Reaching For The Stars," Artist installing the Stainless Steel Sphere

From 2006 to 2015, Czor continued to experiment with materials and metaphors that bridge the creative forces between art and science.  Within the movement of post conceptual art, he began to look deeper.  Czor explained, “The anatomy of the human visual system is fascinating, and offers an idea of why art is so mysteriously important to our sense of being. 

When we observe a significant artwork or something beautiful, our sensory neural network brings the sensation of light in various frequencies, time, and in 3-D form into our brain.  It is fascinating that the optic nerve doesn’t just extend into the visual cortex; optic nerve bundles also lead directly to our amygdala, hypothalamus, and other neural structures.  Studies of biochemical changes in the brain and spinal cord show that upon directing various colors into the eye, remarkable changes occur in the concentration of neurotransmitters and many other brain function chemicals found in the cerebrospinal fluid.  Perhaps this phenomenon is one reason why art is capable of heightening our understanding of the world.”

Presently in 2023, Czor is experimenting with dichroic film sculpture and diffraction grating Mylar bas-relief limited edition astronomy wall-hung sculptures.  We are eager to see what he will create next. 

For more on Czor’s philosophical beliefs and activities, go to “The Writings” and “Articles” section of his website.