For painter Fidencio Durán, it all leads back to stories. Like the cautionary tales he heard from his parents, Mexican American tenant farmers who raised their 10 children in Maxwell, a small community east of Lockhart. Or the adventure-filled chronicles told by his grandparents about how they moved north during the Mexican Revolution. And then there are the humorous anecdotes from aunts, uncles and other members of his sprawling extended family.

And from those stories, Durán created paintings. Indeed, with his 20-year exhibit history and four public murals in Austin alone — including the vast nine-panel "The Visit" that splashes across the wall above a ticket counter at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport — Durán's art is among the most visible in town.

Making it even more so is a retrospective exhibit at Mexic-Arte Museum. And every one of the more than 30 paintings or drawings on view leads to some narrative.

Like the story his father, Fidencio Durán Sr., repeatedly told about his decision not to follow the streams of migrant laborers who left Central Texas for points north each summer. Though it meant living only off what he could earn as a tenant farmer, Durán Sr. told his children that he wanted more for them an itinerant existence. More stability, more time at one school, more opportunities.

From that story came "Al Norte." With his characteristic illustrative style — slightly elongated figures set in somewhat stylized arrangements against an enormous expanse of blue sky — Durán depicts two men talking, a 1950s-era car packed with family and belongings off to the side. One man stands with his arms resolutely folded in front of him. His face bears more than a passing resemblance to Durán's.

"I used myself as model for both figures," the soft-spoken 44-year-old artist says on a recent stroll through the exhibit. "I wanted to catch just the right folds in the clothing, just the right position of the arms."

That precision makes for visual narratives rich in detail. Look close at the expanse of flat farm lands in Durán's works and you can see the tiny purple flowers and bright green plants that dot the edges of fields. Then there's a modest white board and batten house with tidy yet clearly hand-made wooden window screens.

As the second youngest child, Durán was shielded by his parents from the fieldwork that occupied his siblings outside of school. Yet their stories gave rise to "The Waterboy," a painting of a pre-adolescent youth, wrapped against the sun, filling water vessels at a spigot in the middle of vast flat farm fields.

Instead of farm work, Durán remembers spending long hours inside while his mother sewed. "It was always peaceful yet busy," he says. "I remember there was a great sense of work but also of creating something. I still think about those times when I'm in my studio now."

In his youth, the large clan gathered after church on Sunday — dressed in their best clothes — for long afternoons of food, play and, yes, stories. And moments from those family gatherings reoccur throughout Durán's paintings. Especially in "The Visit," preliminary drawings for which are included in the current exhibit. Sprawled out across the nine panels are images of cousins and siblings playing Frisbee and volleyball, adults having animated conversations and a young boy getting his first dance lesson.

Now, Durán's family is scattered from their Maxwell homestead, his parents — his father will turn 90 later this fall — residing in an Austin elder-care home, his siblings living around Texas. Yet images of their family history — along with history of other rural Mexican American families in Central Texas — now speak from the walls of Mexic-Arte.

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699