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 Stefan's Biography 

Stefan Duncan was born Dec. 1 as Stephen Ward. His mother is Betty Duncan and Howard Ward. Duncan has an English and Art Degree. In 1992 he changed his last name to his mother's maiden name of Duncan because of Scottish sword competitions and for an artistic name. Duncan is an only child. His father was born in Chadbourn, N.C. and his mother, Hallsboro, N.C. His father became sports editor of the Fayetteville Observer and his mother became a teacher in the Learning Lab of Fayetteville Technical Community College. As a child, Duncan was like the director and writer of play with is friends. In school he was shy and nervous, victim to savage torment by older boys of his neighborhood for his strong Christian faith and for a  month of speech therapy in elementary school. In the fourth grade, he had volunteered to do draw a cornstalk for the poster board and was called the "artist" of the class. This title was a great boost for his low self esteem. During school, Duncan became like the defender of the less fortunate against bullies and taunters. Duncan developed strong writing skills having spent many afternoons at the newspaper while his father worked. He started playing the guitar and wrote songs. He played baseball and football. His father, who played golf everyday, would chip golf balls on the school grounds and Duncan would catch them with his baseball glove. He spent his summers at Lake Waccamaw with his grandparents Sally and Roy Duncan. They owned a small pavilion on the lakeside. Roy took men fishing during the mornings. Duncan always went along. His grandfather made the lake seem magical to Duncan with tales and little fishing rituals. This lake has always been in Duncan's heart and why most of his paintings have water in them. His grandfather died in 1962 representing a great loss for Duncan. Duncan graduated from Douglas Byrd High School in 1975. He was only a C average student. He choose Wingate College and was going to pursue a degree in recreation because he feared he would get low grades in other endeavors. However, he made almost all A's his first year and decided he wanted to become a doctor. Then, Duncan hit the higher maths and decided to stay with a childhood love of biology. He also found a liking to psychology, and created a huge book of drawings of the nervous systems as a comparative study of living organisms. He took some side art classes and always made A's. His English teachers told Duncan he had a nack for writing. During this time, Duncan began considering becoming a novelist. He loved reading Stephen King novels and thought with his stories that by putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations against a "wronged" living force now turned revengeful in depth, that through horror he would awake the characters/reader into realizing the value of love and family and religion. He played at a couple of coffee houses and played host with guitar for a puppet show performing for kids in hospitals. Duncan graduated with an A.S. in Science. When returning to Fayetteville he took various jobs while he wrote and read to develop his skills to become a novelist. During the next few years, Duncan worked a summer with his uncle at a Crematory....(loved his uncle...but what a horrid job)... help manage a family endeavor in running a diner. He joined ROTC and went to Methodist College but dropped out. He worked at a mental hospital and used his experience there as writing material for his first novel. Then, he got a job as a Private Investigator after interviewing an investigator for a fiction book he was writing. His goal was to become a published writer by the age of 30.  He taught creative writing at FTCC and published poetry and short stories locally. On his 29th year, Duncan signed a three book contract with a small casting agency out of Wilmington, North Carolina, that wanted to become a filming business. During this time, Duncan was editor for the Rockfish Record and St. Pauls Outlook. In Oct. of his 29th year, Duncan was driving down I-95 to deliver photos to a woman, when he was forced off the road and struck a large tree. He broke his ankle, knee was crushed, hip broken, all his ribs were broken, and he received a head injury. For several days Duncan was in ICU. On a Sunday night around 2 a.m. his parents were called and asked if they would donate his organs. The crucial moment came when the breathing machines were removed either Duncan would live or die within five minutes. His mother, knelt by a chair and kept saving, "breath....breath....breath...."  To the doctors surprise, he continued on his own. Over 40 x-rays showed his spleen was severely injured and would need to be removed. When they operated to do so, they discovered the spleen was uninjured. The surgeon said he had never seen anything like that and thought if it wasn't a miracle it was just short of one. But like an old country song, Duncan's dog was put to sleep, his bride to be married another on their planned wedding day, and the publishing company he worked for did not carry worker's insurance and was sued by the hospital. They sold their business and Duncan was out of a job. His contract went void with the movie people.  He was told he would never walk again because of nerve damage in his left leg. Yet, one day, a tingling started in his toes. It took several years to walk without a wheelchair or cane.  Because of the accident, Duncan never wrote another novel. Months after the accident, sitting and looking out of his bedroom window, he decided he had to move on and live. He went to Fayetteville State University and received an English and Art Degree. He got a reporter job for the Washington Daily News, in Washington, North Carolina. Duncan created a crime reporter position. He won an Associated Press Award.  During this time he went through the Police Academy as a challenge and to become a better crime reporter. He passed the physical requirements which was a minor miracle considering he was to never walk again.  He rode with the police about three nights a week, and worked as a reporter during the days. During this time he married and had a daughter Abbigail Haven Ward. He began studying kenjutsu sword and won the Highland National Sword Championship from 1995-1998. This consisted of 100 swordsmen from across the country that competed.  After interviewing a woman with a clay business, Duncan started doing clay pieces and on the side sold wizards and dragons, Indians, etc. at a flea market. He drew on occasion. The marriage lasted about a year. Several years later, Duncan remarried and moved to Salisbury, North Carolina. He worked as a security guard for a hospital and wanting to continue doing writing and investigating, as a fun hobby he created The American UFO News. It was a weekly online UFO news report and also an pc online broadcast where he interviewed UFO seers, alleged abductees, etc. Duncan considered aliens as a modern day mythology. He went to many of the highland games and created the White Rose Dragons Honor Sword Brigade. Duncan reinjured his knee and moved back to Fayetteville. During this time he re-discovered doing art and found it took his pain away. He joined the Cape Fear Studios in Fayetteville, developed great friends and found the drive and all his unending writing energy - this great creative force - had resurfaced to be used in art. In 1998, or so, Duncan decided to pursue art full time. It took four years to develop his own unique style. Two years after this, he fell into his Squiggleism™ style. Duncan moved to Charlotte, N.C.  He was selling one painting about every two months. In 2001, Stefan met Mary Margaret who becomes his significant other. Then, in August, 2005, he did a little solo show at Ole Town Gallery in Fayetteville. It was on the Fourth Friday gallery crawl night. Suddenly there was a line of people to see the exhibit. In two hours Duncan sold 17 paintings. It was as if, all the planets had aligned perfectly just for that moment.  The following weekend, Duncan sold another dozen at a show in Charlotte. Suddenly, his sales increased and from August 2005 to August 2006 he sold 231 paintings. August of 2006, David Wolk, of Van Gogh Gallery, announced on their site that Duncan was becoming America's Van Gogh. Duncan works 12 hours a day. He thinks and lives art from the time he wakes up until he goes to bed at night. His mission is to bring the Divine back into peoples' lives. He tries to reveal the essence of the Divine in nature. The art form is called Squiggleism™, a Living Spirit Art. It is Duncan's hopes that his works will be enjoyed by people across the world, that each painting will give them a little more "Light" in their lives. It has become his mission. He also teaches locally several classes a week for children and adults. Since August 2005, Stefan has sold over 700 original paintings. Stefan now lives in Mineral Springs, N.C. with Mary Margaret and their beautiful Labrador Retriever named Haggis. In 2009 Stefan and Mary are remodeling their home on 2.5 acres to be as an art gallery and school of art.   One particular artist is leading the contemporary impressionists in an effort to become "America's Vincent Van Gogh"... Stefan Duncan! Duncan's amazing work is a plethora of brilliant colors tossed about in a whimisical style he calls Squiggleism™. Having been greatly influenced by Vincent Van Gogh, Stefan utilizes this updated technique to draw the quick strokes of the impressionists into long curvy lines. These tight eddies of color dance around his paintings lighting every feature with beauty! It is this very beauty that Stefan strives to capture in all of his work; revealing the divine in nature! Stefan's work continues to amaze me and it gives me great pleasure to be able to show it to the rest of the world. Each painting is Neo-Gogh while still presenting the signature style of Duncan. These paintings are a gift to all who love Vincent Van Gogh and a perfect representation of greatness!               David Wolk, Vincent Van Gogh Gallery

Stefan Duncan has dedicated his life to the study of the master impressionists, such as Van Gogh, Monet, Seurat, Klimt, Cezzane and Pissarro.  Stefan has forged his own style of modern impressionism; he calls it Squiggleism™ – Living Spirit Art.

 Van Gogh opened Stefan's eyes to the Divine in nature.  Stefan is creating a style he calls "Van Gogh’s dash with a twist".  Stefan’s style seeks to unveil nature's jubilation that the Divine lives in all that exists.  Stefan is opening eyes around the world to see the Divine Essence, not only in the nature around us, but also within ourselves, and how it connects us with everything.  Stefan’s mission is to bring the Divine into the heart of people's homes. 

 Van Gogh's strokes are short dashes like a quick piano note. Stefan's strokes are longer, swirl and waver like a sustained piano note. Where the quick dash sometimes interpreted as haste, even anger.  Some even say madness or drug inspired, or a feeling of helplessness and desolation.  The long stroke emits a sense of serenity and peace. The long strokes are like harmonious lullabies or babbling brooks.

There is a scene in the movie "Phenomena" when John Travolta watches a large tree swaying in a silent universal dance. It rocked like a cradle and made you feel as though you were a child again sitting on your mother's lap being rocked.

Van Gogh helped us glimpse the Divine's universal forces in Starry Night. Stefan seeks to reveal the even more of the Divine through his work with squiggles.

The Van Gogh Gallery is presenting paintings of artist today that are carrying the torch of Van Gogh.

The Van Gogh Gallery will be showing several of Stefan's works as an artist of today upon whom Van Gogh has had an impact. "I want Squiggleism™ known as a unique style where my work would be different from anyone else. Like no two snowflakes are alike, neither are artists that express themselves truly. When it comes to Van Gogh, his work opened my eyes to the Divine in nature. His life is known as one of the most tragic to have lived in a state of poverty, only selling one painting during his life, and yet after death become one of the greatest artists we'll ever have. I've read all of his 1,000 plus letters to his brother, read countless books on his life such as Lust for Life by Irving Stone, viewed his paintings inches from my nose, thoroughly studied David Brook's Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Works. From across the States and to Europe I go to study Van Gogh's works. I simply love his work and I think of all the serenity and beauty he has given us just with Starry Night is one of the greatest gifts a man has given to humanity. It is my respect for the man, his striving to reach the Divine in his work, the lonely suffering he encountered during his life, that I hope in my own way I can carry on his light to continue what he had started. He brought me to the path and I am forging ahead with my own style.

"I know there are a million other artists in the world that are masters each with their own skills and gifts.  For me, I just know what I feel in my heart. Those that know me and my work, many artists, art professors, gallery owners, the public (like in their statements in my guest book.... say they love my work and they "get" what I am trying to do.  But what is important to me, my mission is to put a painting in families' living rooms, right in the middle of the lives. When they are worried about what to cook, being late for work, paying the light bill, changing the diapers, they walk pass my painting and consciously or unconsciously they glimpse of serenity and are reminded of where they have come from and where they will go after this life as Wordsworth so elegantly has stated through his poetry.

"Each of us carries that fragile spark of light that will be wisped away one day. It should be the hope of all of us; I know it is mine, to give something back to humanity before we depart this world. While we are here, we are to glorify the Divine so that others may see. This is my mission and passion. It is why I paint 12 plus hours a day and teach five classes a week at different locations. I paint from my heart to glorify the Divine.  So like in any art form there will be those that criticize and roll their eyes at one's works. But I am rewarded every time a stranger comes up to me and views my paintings and "feels' serenity, the jubilation, and sees the Divine as it lives in nature.  My paintings are selling as fast as I can make them. I'm not saying I'm a good artist or bad, I just know I paint from my heart. I paint from the truth that I feel. I paint with a mission with the best of my ability with the talent the Divine has given me. That is all I know. That is all I do. Any success I've achieved thus far and will achieve I take this as the reward from the Divine that I may carry even further my mission to us that live now and those of the future.  Regardless of any of this said, it is the art that speaks for itself.  If a work is good, it stands on its own. No lofty egocentric speech filled with illusions of grandeur by an artist will make his work good. It should shine on its own."      Stefan Duncan, Nov. 13, 2005