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I Love Your Stories is a soulful conversation series hosted by artist and creative guide Hava Gurevich, where art meets authenticity. Each episode invites you into an intimate dialogue with artists, makers, and visionaries who are courageously crafting lives rooted in creativity, purpose, and self-expression.
From painters and poets to healers and community builders, these are the stories behind the work—the moments of doubt, discovery, grief, joy, and transformation. Through honest, heart-centred conversations, Hava explores how creativity can be both a healing force and a path to personal truth.
If you’re an artist, a dreamer, or someone drawn to a more intuitive and intentional way of living, this podcast will remind you that your story matters—and that the act of creating is a sacred, revolutionary act.
[MUSIC]
Welcome back to All of Your Stories.
I'm your host, Kava Gervich,
and my guest today is Kelly Durante,
an experimental biologist
and lifelong artist,
whose work moves between the precision of
science and the fluidity of paint.
With a background spanning biology,
anthropology, and psychology,
and a long career in scientific research,
Kelly brings a deep understanding
of patterns,
systems, and experimentation into
her creative practice.
We talk about the moment
a single paint-pouring workshop
became a turning point,
and how she's since developed her
own techniques to bring
intention and structure into an inherently
unpredictable medium.
We also explore how she navigates
these two worlds,
where science and art intersect,
and where they begin to diverge.
This is a conversation about curiosity,
experimentation, and what it looks
like to create across disciplines.
Help me in welcoming Kelly
to this episode.
Now, quick word from our sponsor,
and then we'll get right
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All right, welcome back to the podcast.
My guest today is Kelly Durante.
Kelly is a biologist turned artist.
That's something I'm so excited
to talk about,
mainly because that intersection
of science and art,
especially biology or the
living sciences,
is where I live.
Let's just start maybe if you want to
say a little bit about yourself,
about your journey,
how you got to biology and then
where the art came in.
I think if I go way back to my childhood,
I liked art before science.
I guess all children are exposed to art,
and I still love the smell of crayons.
I think they should make a
perfume out of that.
If I had to choose what I would do after
school or day camps or whatever,
it was always arts and crafts.
Then later on, actually art.
But then starting in middle school,
I really was drawn to biology and genetics
and evolutionary theory.
Skipping ahead to college, that's what
I ended up studying in college.
I also went to grad school
in psychobiology
and back to physical anthropology.
It's a convergence of brain
behavior and evolution
for the things I thought about in
college and grad school.
Which is not exactly what I've
been doing for a living.
What exactly is it that you do?
I work with vascular cells,
cells that grow on the inside
of a vessel.
Those are called endothelial cells.
Then around those, there's a few layers
of smooth vessel cells.
I work a lot with those two
types of cells.
I grow them like my little
babies in the lab.
I freeze them away and I grow them for many
generations until they're too old
because I have to start again
with a newer batch.
I do experiments on them.
I look at different factors
that are in the body
and different chemicals that could
be introduced by medicines
and even mechanical factors like
stretch and sheer force,
which is the force of a river along
the edge of a river,
like a flowy force, and even
infrared heat,
so on the health of vascular cells.
Wow.
Then I quantify those and do statistics
and yada, yada, yada.
Hopefully in a paper.
At what point, I mean, you're looking at,
I'm assuming microscopic images of
all these different cells.
Yeah.
I've been looking at seeing cells
and seeing them as things that
react to the chemicals,
different amounts of the chemicals or
being in chemicals for different
length of time
and that they look really happy now and
now they're really stressed out
and now they're shriveling up and now
they're floating, they're dying.
Kind of like behavior, kind of
anthropomorphizing the cells,
giving them their own personalities
in the petri dish.
I think that comes through in my art where
there are a lot of cells in my art
and they're sort of on vacation.
They're out of the petri dish.
They're sort of out in the wild universe
doing whatever they want to do,
like a fantasy world for cells
or something like that.
Let's just go back a little bit.
I want to know, what is that moment?
Is there something where
you started like,
oh, this is so beautiful or this
is so interesting,
I want to actually reintroduce it as art.
Yeah, I did.
There was at some point, maybe
10 or 15 years ago,
that I was doing an experiment and
I think it was with glucose
and some other growth factor and the
cells reacted so differently.
There was like the normal cells and then
the big exploding cells with glucose
and then the really striated cells,
they're all the same cell type,
the same age and everything.
I just thought, these are
really beautiful.
And so I took pictures of them,
microscopic pictures,
and just sort of created
the color to make
them a series that I just
had in my house.
And now it's up in the lab.
I do think my lab space is prettier
with art in it.
So, but then I've always done
other arts and crafts.
I don't know exactly where the line
is between arts and crafts,
but I had a re- and knitting and sewing
and rubber stamp carving
and photography for a really
long time, actually.
So I took photography in college and some
of the things I learned in the dark room
translated into doing better technical
things in the lab, creating,
I do a western blot, which is
basically these bands,
but you want them to be, you want to see
the protein that you're looking at
and you want it to be high contrast,
but you also want to see the difference
between different treatments.
So I learned a lot from the dark room that
translated into better western blots.
And anyway, so like always, there is arts and
crafts or something in my background.
I've been painting forever.
But then, I guess five years
ago or something,
I went to take a workshop, just a one day
workshop on fluid art or acrylic core.
And it was so life changing.
It was just such a breathtaking
experience.
Like the way I describe it to people,
and I think everyone should
try acrylic pour,
is that it's like watching a lava lamp,
but you're in the lava lamp.
You created the lava lamp.
You're like, you are in this dynamic,
moving, beautiful trip toy sort of.
Wow.
So let me I'm going to just this is how I
see your trajectory or your journey.
You come from an artistic family.
I know that for a fact because
I know your sister.
And so you've never strayed very
far from being an artist.
You've had all these other artistic
outlets, visual creative outlets,
but you followed your passion
for biology.
And so in like your real life, you were doing
biology and then your sort of soul.
You had the art.
And the moment that sort of defined
where you are now
was like suddenly seeing your
subject of your studies,
the thing that you've been studying
and working on as a biologist,
and you describe so well, giving it a narrative
and a life and personality.
You're suddenly suddenly
seeing it as, oh,
this is this should be the
subject of my art.
Yeah. And then and then you
found your medium.
Yeah, it found my medium and it was
a real eureka kind of thing.
And I mean, it's funny, it's very serendipitous
because everyone who makes this
kind of art does call those
little things cells.
So and they do seem to have nuclei.
Sometimes you make them
in different ways.
And some of them are just sort of they're
called pearl cells and they're just kind
of luminous, kind of like
parts of a cloud.
But a lot of them look exactly like a
little cell with a little nucleus
in the middle.
And I think we've all seen whether
I've tried acrylic pores.
I've spent hours mesmerized watching videos
of acrylic pores, trying to create
those cells, like just being
amazed by those cells.
Can you can you tell us what exactly
is happening on like.
What's happening there? How how is
it different than other?
So this is different. This
is you're creating
different paints that have
different densities.
And you can specifically try to make a very
dense paint that's going to always sink
to the bottom or a very what
I call fluffy,
but a light paint that goes to the top.
So if you have the light paint
on the bottom and a heavy
paint on top, the light paint will
come up and open like it,
make the surface tension of
that denser paint
on top and create this thing
called a pearl cell.
Bubble. Yeah.
But if you have usually people will mix a
little bit of silicone oil in to.
So the paint, let me go
back a little bit.
The paint is like your heavy body
acrylic paint mixed
with water and mixed with some
kind of pouring medium.
I use Chloetrol.
It's an additive that makes it
stay wet longer and also
reduces the friction between like
the different paints.
So that allows them to sort of maintain
their color integrity, let's say.
They're not all getting muddled together
and you have different layers
of the paint.
They will break through each other
in these very distinct cells.
So if you mix a little bit of silicone into
those like cups of the pour paint
and you can layer them all together, flip
it upside down and let it go.
That's called a dirty cup.
That's really fun to do.
Really easy to do.
And you just don't know where these
cells are going to pop up.
And that's probably what I did the first
time when I fell in love with it.
And I spent like a good half
a year or a year just
doing these standard things that
you can see on YouTube.
Or you and I still love to watch this.
I still love to watch someone else
using their paint and
their supplies and just let me watch
that magical moment.
But maybe because I work in
a lab and part of
me loves the chaos and part
of me loves order.
I just thought like how can I control
it more and more and more?
What are the limitations of how
much I can control?
It's how precisely in my marks.
So I started doing chameleon
cells, which are when
you don't put any silicone into
the cups of paint.
So you layer them on.
Typically I swipe a color on top.
So there's like a color shape that I create
first, let's say, underneath.
And I swipe a it's going to become a background
color, but you swipe it on top and
then you break through with like a
toothpick with a little bit
of silicone oil on it.
And you precisely place where you
want yourselves to be.
So that's where I can kind of make
a narrative like, oh,
the cells are doing this or they're
clustering over here.
I can place them in the.
I love how you just you know, you kind of
like very seamlessly go from like
creative art to creative biology
and then art and
then bringing the biology and
science back into it.
It's it's quite fluent and fluid
the way you do it.
Very fluid. And in fact, when I'm making a
painting, especially sort of the least
ones lately, I've been doing a lot of
geometries, but the looser ones.
What I see is sometimes a cell, you know,
literally a cell, sometimes just like
that represents an individual and it's
sort of more of a landscape.
And I'm really have like a horizon
in there somewhere.
And then sometimes it's just like outer
space to me, but other people
see the ocean.
I sometimes like it's the same painting.
I'll switch scales. I'll go microscopic
to landscape to macroscopic worlds.
I'm curious when you started making art,
like using your work to take it in a
creative, expressive direction that's no
longer scientifically accurate.
What kind of response did you get
from your fellow biologists?
And were you initially embraced by other
scientists or by the art community?
Good question. Well, a couple of the people
I do art with are also biologists.
So they have a feat in both worlds.
And so we support each other.
And one of them is actually does
a lot of poor, too.
And so we can very easily
see both worlds.
Also, some people at our local we have
something called the Columbia
Art League where I live.
And it's like an artist community.
But there are a lot of people because
it's a college town.
There's a lot of people associated
with the
university, a lot of them in the
medical school like me.
And they are very adamant about
like, this is a bone.
This is like it's not what
I was thinking.
But they are have a science
background and
they're very specific about what this is.
This is the way the tendon attaches to
the bone and the cells that do this.
And I could definitely see why it looks
like a histological sort of
subject generally.
But they are like, really,
this is really funny.
Yeah. Then as far as other artists
go, I just love that.
I mean, I felt pretty much like an imposter,
I think, at my first show.
So when other artists ask me, like,
how do you do this?
It's strange to me.
It's not like a normal painting, I guess,
that is like so encouraging to me.
And where they say they really like it
or they feel it or something.
I just feel like so validated.
And yeah, so I love I love
getting kind of
any feedback, but I've touched either one
of those or some of those.
I feel like there should be more dialogue
between the two, because I
think for any kind
research or any kind of scientific
discovery, you need creativity.
Yeah. And sometimes you need to engage in
something that's not rigid
and doesn't have
an end result that's expected in order to
get those creative juices flowing.
On the other hand, it especially
with abstract art,
having having this reference, this new
interpretation of it really helps expand,
at least for me, really helps
expand how we
look at art.
You know, you mentioned that other
biologists would be like, oh,
this is a bone or this
is a ligament. And I think
I forget the term,
but, you know, humans, we
are all we're always
looking for faces.
And when we look at abstract
art, a lot of
people will try to like
they'll see a face
in there, they'll see an animal, they'll
see things in there.
And it's funny that within the biology
community, like it gets like zeroed
in on a bone, like
not a branch, not a branch, a bone.
But yeah, people do when you present them
with something so abstract,
they do try to
find a more concrete meaning.
To me, a lot of my paintings
are just sort
of they're like an experience more than a
thing, a feeling, I think, and they're like
a connection to something mysterious.
Yeah.
So not very concrete at all.
And I'm comfortable with that.
But maybe a lot of people aren't.
But I think going back to
what you said about
how this kind of process could
help scientists
to sort of loosen up.
And I think you're absolutely right.
And that there's a lot of a lot of
science is sort of letting go.
Like when something doesn't work,
you try to prove it's wrong.
Sometimes you do prove that
you're that you're
wrong and that you need to
go in a new direction
and just to kind of forget everything and
just look up and just create
space for like
the eureka moment, you know, where you
see things in a new light.
I think that visual art or maybe any kind
of art is useful for that
important for that.
Are you strictly like a researcher
or do you also teach?
I do the research, which includes like
experimenting that I talked about
and also like fixing things
that go wrong, like equipment that
goes wrong in the lab.
But also I teach that it's not
not like a costume.
It's one on one.
So if we have a business scientist, they
might come for a year or something.
I'll show them or a new person in the lab
or like a summer student
or graduate student
or something like that.
What about as far as the art?
Well, that's a good question.
That's a fun question because
I told you when
I had this entry into the
art, it was taking
this workshop at the Columbia Art League.
And now I teach that class.
That's fantastic.
So I actually just love that more than
teaching in the lab is like seeing
other people with
this moment of joy.
And I'm like, yeah, I told like
this is pretty great.
So other than that, what are you most
passionate about right now?
I guess I've been on a one
or two year deep
dive into sacred geometry,
which is really
pushing the envelope of what I can
do with these poor paintings.
But I'm looking at interesting geometries that
recur in nature, like themes, visual
themes like spirals, branching things.
But I'm pretty obsessed with circles.
I really like making circles, little
cells, but like a larger circle
that they're in,
which is very challenging.
It was the first few times
I tried to make
it, I messed up so many times,
which is it's
great because when you mess
up in the lab,
it's how you know all these
repercussions.
Yeah.
The art just so what?
Now that you have you make art that's
inspired by these microscopic
slides, does you ever
like induce something just
to see how it's
going to look in, you know, if to inspire
your artistic side in the lab?
No, but maybe I will now.
Because I'm not really recreating what
I see in the microscope.
It's more like that's just
I've been doing
it for so long looking at
a microscope, like
for 30 years that I just that's just part
of how I see the world now.
And so it's sort of like
I'm trying to get
away from it when I do art, but it's just
so much a part of me now that I keep it.
I non non science is still
a lot of science.
What do you think would be
like, I mean, you're
kind of acting as an ambassador
of sorts between
the art world and the biology world.
What would you want to say to artists or
somebody who has never been
in that other camp?
Like, what would you want to tell them
about the world of biology?
Maybe there's not as many differences as
people think there are, like,
in both worlds, I'm
doing a lot of preparation before.
Like, I don't know if all
art is this way,
but for my art, it's like
I can prepare ideas.
I think everyone does that, you know, but
then there's a lot of prep
work, like preparing
all the paints and deciding maybe I have to
prepare a special tool for a painting.
Everything has to be done
before the sort of
critical two hours where the
paint is wet and
moving. Same thing in science.
It's a lot of preparation,
working up to like
learning a new protocol, thinking
it through,
writing, taking notes and
having all of your
reagents prepared for this
moment with your
mind. Technically, I'm moving around and
pouring liquids and it's kind
of a lot of the same
thing. It's like maybe each
side might think
the other one is more glamorous,
but they're
both maybe hands on, very similar, like a
work and preparation is important.
And although with science, you never
really get to let go.
And in art, there's this moment where
I just like, really, I'm flying.
It's like the moment when things are
moving and the marks and the
marks are growing.
I guess the scientists are missing out if
they don't try some art a little bit.
It's pretty remarkable that after having
already having a full on career
as a biologist and
having, making art your whole
life, but then
suddenly sort of like taking
it a little more
seriously and starting to exhibit and now
you're teaching and part of this
community. That's pretty amazing that you
were able to accomplish that.
What would you say for you
right now is your
definition of success and
how has it changed
over the past 30 years?
Well, what you just said made
me think about how
privileged I am to have been
able to go from one
world to another. And it
all had to do with
like trying something new,
basically, just being
vulnerable, having no expectations and
just learning something new.
And I think that's really important.
So maybe success is creating
the conditions where
you can, you know, let yourself
be free from fear
of failure or something and just
try something new.
I'm just starting to learn
a couple of new
techniques, other techniques,
cyanotyping.
It's really fun. And someone
taught another
little workshop at the Columbia
Art League, which was
painting on organza silk and as a layer
to go on top of paintings.
And it's just very stimulating.
And just like I think it's
wonderful to open
yourself up to new experiences
and sort of connect,
allow yourself to connect with
something that you
don't already know greater than
yourself than what
you already know.
If you had to.
I mean, I guess at some point
you will retire from
being, you know, you're a scientist,
but with art
there's never retiring.
So good.
So now I have plans.
I think it's coming pretty soon.
I've been on grant money for my whole
career and I think it's coming
to a close soon.
So I'm again in a very privileged
situation
to have the passion, which
I mean, I basically
am always looking for time to explore it
right now and I will have more time.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
I need to get a little more serious about
marketing and things that
maybe aren't as fun.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think.
My understanding is that with
science, especially
if you're doing any kind of research,
it's usually a
team, right?
There's a lot of collaboration
and working together.
Is that whereas art is more of a solo?
Yeah, I definitely I don't do all the
things that our lab needs to do.
I don't work with animals.
I have a problem with that.
But I do a lot of the other a lot of the
work I do in the lab is solitary.
So it's similar to my.
However, I notice with art, like I really
can't make it with someone else around.
People have asked to come over
and show me show me
your process or whatever and
I can help them do it.
But I feel completely stunted
creatively when someone.
So I really can't I just I've
learned to not even
try to make something myself when
I'm guiding someone
else through it.
I mean, is it self-consciousness
when you're creating art?
Maybe it's almost like a religious
experience, but I've it.
OK, yeah, it gets pretty deep for me.
I think I'm connecting with
something and I
I just can't do it with someone
else around.
I don't know. Maybe at some point
I will be able to.
I'll be that free.
No, I mean, but maybe that's what it is.
I don't think it's necessarily something
that needs to be fixed or changed.
And yeah, I just feel if someone else is
there, I just can't connect to this.
I can't let myself go.
You know, if you if you start
out from a more
scientific perspective of like
you create the conditions
and then just let things play out.
But I feel like for you, that would be a
different type of experience than
the the more personal
creative experience that you
get from making art.
So do you have any exciting exhibitions
or other opportunities coming up?
Yeah, I'll have a solo show.
Yeah, at the Columbia Art League has
they managed three galleries.
One is always a group show.
And I'm in that show with my
mom right now, which
is really like it's a it's
called Dinosaursness,
like a paleobiology show,
which is, you know,
really challenging us to
make things that we
wouldn't ordinarily make.
So she and I both have a piece of that
and we'll go to reception tomorrow.
So that's all.
Wow.
But the Columbia Art League also has
another gallery attached that's
based in the third
gallery and that that third
gallery, which
is in a bank, I'll have
my sacred geometry
show, which I have shown in
a solo show before,
but I'll be doing it again
there in September.
And then right after that, in the fourth
quarter, I'll be in a solo show
at a place called
Rockledge Financial.
And they have they usually have about 12
pieces in a conference room,
but I'm going to be
doing like all their walls and maybe raising
some money for charity with that.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Can you share a little more information
about all the different venues
where you're going
to have your exhibitions?
Yes.
So the group shows that I'm
usually have one
piece or one or two pieces
in the group show.
That's the Columbia Art League, which is
on Main Street in Columbia, Missouri.
And all my permanent exhibits, I have
permanent exhibits that are up
at Serendipity Wellness
Studios and fluid bodywork massage
in Columbia, Missouri.
And and then I have the solo
show coming up
will be at the Central Bank
and then Rockledge
Financial will have the show
up for three months.
At the end of this year.
That's amazing.
Honestly, you are you're doing more as
an artist than most artists.
I know.
Thank you.
I'm definitely pushing myself,
but still trying
to make time for that first
moment to recreate
sort of wonder and you know, creating a
quiet space for myself to just
connect with this
creative energy.
I don't know what it is exactly,
but I love it.
Where can if somebody wants to learn more
about your art or even your
research, how can
they find you?
Okay, so my research I published
under my maiden name.
So that would be Kelly Payton.
So if you wanted to Google
Scholar Kelly Payton,
you'll see a lot of published
articles and posters
and abstracts from meetings about about
vascular cells, basically.
And and then if you want to see my art, you
can probably Google Kelly Durante art.
And that'll take you to an
artist village page
through Columbia Art League,
which has links to
Pinterest, which is where
I keep my kind of
catalog of everything I painted
so far that I need to
improve on that.
I realize you don't have a
website of your own.
I know that my sister told me I
need one and she's right.
I was just going to say you should have
your sister help you create one.
She's she's ready and willing
and eager to help me.
And then also Instagram on
my Instagram account,
you can just look Kelly Durante
or Kelly Durante
Art should show my Instagram
and put out like a
new piece every Friday as sort
of a break from the
ordinary world and just giving people
something beautiful to look at.
Great. And I'll have I'll have those links
in the notes as well for people.
Kelly, thank you so much.
Very inspired.
And I am actually really curious to see not
just your art, but also your slides.
Oh, yeah.
If you go into some of the
articles, you'll
actually see you'll see the cells
that are in there.
I'm curious. I'm curious because
when you first
started talking about your your
work and the cells and you
describe them in this kind of anthropomorphic
way and their lives.
The thought that crossed my mind is like
there's a children's book
in there somewhere.
Probably I think you're right.
But with with the real cells
or the art cells?
I don't know, but I think like.
If you if you were to inspire a future
generation of biologists.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Like giving the cells some personality.
Yeah, it's it's it's less abstract.
You know, this is what happens when you
sit in the sun for too long.
This is what happens if you
drink too much coffee.
Actually, so I grow the cells, you
know, I keep them alive.
I cryopreserve them back so I can have
some younger ones later on.
And then I I treat them and then
I then I have to kill them.
So I don't know how that would
go over in the kids.
But maybe we don't talk about that part.
But I have to extract, you know, find out
what was happening in the cells.
And that's usually involves lysing them.
And I remember when I told
my sister that once
when she was young, she was
like, oh, how mean?
After you've told me about how happy
they are or how they react.
It's the dark part. Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, at least they don't have like
nerve endings and confusion.
No range.
Or range of emotion.
I I attribute these things to them.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
This was so fun.
Thank you.
Thanks again for tuning in.
That's our episode.
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And if you did, please help us out by leaving
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