Inspiration on display

You can win a horse race by a nose, but what does it take to win an art competition? Mat-Su Valley oil painter Douglas Girard knows. He has been the front-runner, receiving many coveted awards, nonstop for the last few years, right here in Alaska.

Stop by “The Gallery” in the Key Bank Plaza in Palmer, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and you will meet a surprisingly humble fellow, who is uncompromising when it comes to producing quality art. The fund-raiser poster, depicting the Matanuska Colony, that Girard will sign, is his winning design, a $2,000 commission from the Matanuska Valley Colony Reunion Committee for its 75th Anniversary.

Also this month, Girard was in Anchorage signing posters for the Alaska Railroad, where his design titled “Northbound Over the Matanuska Bridge” was the successful choice for its annual poster competition. And he will be in Fairbanks for a signing later this month.

Girard also won the first Rasmuson Award from the Palmer Museum Competition in 2007; he won “Best of Show” at Stephans Fine Arts Gallery in Anchorage in the annual Art in Alaska State Parks 2008 statewide competition sponsored by the Alaska Artist Guild. He was bestowed the “Peers Award,” meaning that competing artist chose his work over their own, in the same exhibit.

In 2010, The Alaska State Council on the Arts chose one of his paintings as a Purchase Award for The Alaska Contemporary Art Bank.

How did Girard get here, and from where? Girard’s career is an interesting trek from South Africa to Alaska, with a few years in California along the way.

Girard’s family moved from California to South Africa when he was 18 months old and he stayed there until he was 17. His dad — a former space scientist — relocated for his “scientific research, including work with lasers”.

When accepted into “Pretoria School for Art, Ballet and Music,” Girard says it was “the best thing to happen to me in Africa. (It) gave me a foundation in design, painting,…art history and theory. I was able to attend many dance performances, while at this school, which gave me a love for dance and the graceful movement of the figure.”

Later, moving back to California, Girard graduated with a bachelor’s of fine arts degree with distinction in illustration from the Art Center in Pasadena. After graduation, as an art teacher he says, “I taught Kevin Costner’s daughters at a private art school,” among others.

Becoming “sick of LA, (with its) riots, smog, and grey ugliness” he and his girlfriend, who later became his wife, headed for Alaska, settling in the Mat-Su Valley to raise their family.

When asked about his career challenges, Girard laments, that he “spent the last decade tying to overcome (his) modernist training from the Art Center.” He considers himself self-taught in the “classical painting methods.”

“Modernism’s explicit goal was to overturn traditional forms of Western culture. The whole history of modern art is a history of denying, rejecting and replacing ancient ideas of beauty. Modernism rejects traditionalism and embraces the mechanical and the materialistic….

“My concept of art stands against these modernist ideas. My paintings are created from a positive embrace of the traditional, the spiritual and classic forms of beauty. They are a rebellion against the corrupting forces of the machine and ‘progress.’ ”

Now working with oil paint, Girard professes to have used about every media — including airbrush, “oil pastels thinned with turpentine; then moved on to acrylic; (I) didn’t start oil until about (age) 20.

“My greatest artistic influences at the present time are the Pre-Raphelites (Lord Leighton, Waterhouse) and the Symbolists of the 19th century. I also love the movement inherent in Baroque and Rococo art.”

About his techniques Girard says, “I use plein air (outdoor) studies, drawings, photography and most importantly my imagination…. Palette and all elements of painting must support the feeling/mood that I wish to convey.

”First comes the experience, and this, combined with the idea, shape the composition. I must feel and have an emotional bond with the subject. Once this is established, I make thumbnail sketches, value and color studies.

“I like to start a painting with a color wash indicating the general values of the composition; (however), sometimes, I start with a blank canvas and build the painting from nothing.

“If there is a figure in a painting I will start with a monochromatic under painting for the figure… Figurative work takes longer and demands more studies. I can work months trying to get a painting just right.

“My female figures are in harmony with their surroundings, they feel nature’s energy flow through them….

“My figurative landscapes are inspired by mythology and by the mountains I live near. They partake in rituals, emerge out of mist and are nearly always close to water, the symbol of life…Here beauty, peace, mystery and the mystical reside.”

Gerard says, “ Hiking in the Hatcher Pass area is a religious experience for me…. The mountains are symbols of the primal forces of nature,… where the energy of the landscape and the atmosphere (are) locked in their eternal dance.

“A magical moment is when clouds move over and envelope the mountains, dissolving rocky peaks and shimmering water into a mysterious apparition.”

After combining energy and inspiration, Girard is ready to mesh this with passion and put paint on canvas. He explains his process toward the finished product as follows:

“Each large painting starts as an idea, a vision or a feeling. I then make a series of drawings to work out the composition that will best embody the concept.

“After I am satisfied with the drawings I paint two or three smaller paintings using the drawings as reference. Only after I have created a balanced, harmonious composition do I start the final painting.

“I do not solve all of the pictorial problems in the preparatory phase, so that while I work on the final painting there is an element of exploration and surprise.”

So how does Girard win prizes? The secret is that his focus is not on the prize. He says, “My goal is to make each painting a poem of color, light and form that captures the essence of my inspiration.”

Suzanne Bach teaches art at Mat-Su College.