The Magic of Animal Eyes

Dog owners are very familiar with the range of expressions from their canine partners: the wide-eyed stare with the lifted brows, heads cocked to one side, as we immediately reach for a piece of treat! Is it just cuteness with man’s best friend? Or is there more behind those eyes? What about a wild mother orangutan carrying her baby, staring at you? Is it emotions, empathy, and understanding – is there more than meets the eye?

To artist Martins Duhms of Marco Island, the EYES HAVE IT as he tries to capture an animal’s eye expression on an art canvas. Do you often wonder what it would be like to see the world behind the different animals’ eyes? According to American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, “the eyes speak all languages,” and “undoubtedly the most expressive elements of a face,” and Salvador Dali made the EYE an obsession in his “The Eye” surrealist painting.

Duhms is fascinated with animals’ eye expression, believing that there is real intelligence behind the facial expressions. Animals gather information about their surroundings using their eyes, and species like orangutans have been known to solve complex problems. “I work on animals that look interesting, like the orangutan and baby, and I am sure they are thinking of something when they are looking at you. There is a brain behind those eyeballs,” said Duhms.

About six years ago, when Duhms and his wife Linda moved to Marco Island, he started taking courses at the Marco Island Center for the Arts with art instructor Diane Reed Eiler. He added that he’s gotten much better and has exhibited his artwork at the Art Center. Growing up, he always enjoyed drawing in school and his teachers even commented, “You are going to be a commercial artist.”

In high school, Duhms turned to literature and writing short stories for the Boston Latin School. “You have to be self-supporting, and literature was not going to do that for me,” said Duhms. He attended Tufts University in Massachusetts to pursue an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and then back to Boston to attend the Harvard Business School.

Duhms affinity for art was put on the back burner as his business endeavors took off, which included a small company, Lexidata, in 1974 and New Media Graphics Corporation in 1980. Technology was moving too fast and Duhms did not know what the next step was going to be. With a successful career in the media and chip company, he decided to call it quits at the age of 48. Duhms and his wife Linda traveled and ended up on Marco Island in 2020.

“Unfortunately, one of the first things that happened to me when we moved here was being diagnosed with cancer (leukemia), and the life of that diagnosis is about six years,” said Duhms. So, “kinda running out of time as my blood gets weaker and weaker.” Linda added, “There is no cure and treatments only try to slow the disease.” They have been looking at clinical trials and nothing has come up yet.

“We can’t travel much now and we need to stay close to doctors and treatments. I’ve been taking courses at the Marco Island Center for the Arts and enjoy using acrylic as I can move fast and I can paint over it,” where Duhms is drawn to specialize in Eyes.

Looking back at his early introduction to art in kindergarten in Boston he knew only seven words of English: yes, no, and his colors - red, black, blue, yellow, and green. We were “genteelly poor,” remarked Duhms, referring to his early years in Jamaica Plain, Boston, in the 1950s.

Duhms’ parents, Marta and Martins, left Latvia in the 1940s as they did not want to live under communism. They ended up in the American-occupied zone in Germany, where Martins was born in 1947. Martins added that the “Americans took care of us and asked, 'Do you want to go to America?’ And here I am!”