Donald W. VanAuken

As an art educator for the past 19 years, VanAuken has served in K-12 secondary education, Museum interpretation. He is currently an Instructor of Art/Art History with the Visual Arts Department at Olivet College and an Instructor of Art at Kellogg Community College.  He received his M.F.A. with the School of Art at Ohio University in 2007.  As a mid career artist he has exhibited in Midwestern regional, national and international exhibitions with his works in printmaking and painting.

Originally from Michigan, Donald W. VanAuken’s  current work deals with location and one’s place within an environment. Living in a restored 1915 farmhouse within the south central portion of Michigan, the artist and his wife have begun to explore this concept of “location” and it’s relationship to how and what one creates.  Artifacts from the past such as, found photographs and ephemeral pop cultural references, as well as encounters with native wildlife have spun off into a narrative of this environment.  Animals and relics of the past are often used as an allegorical means to describe situations, quandaries and everyday experiences that can describe a place.