PASSION IN PRACTICE

PALMER — Douglas Girard feels art is a religious experience, which makes his proselytizing in oil on canvas personal and rewarding.

The Palmer-area artist has been painting for 26 years, since he was about 14 and attending an arts high school in Pretoria, South Africa. His education led him to creative arts school in California, and finally to the Mat-Su in the mid-1990s.

“So, I remember the first time driving down the Glenn Highway just north of Palmer,” he said. “It was just so spectacular. There were the mountains and the sun was setting and the golden light hitting the fields was just so glorious. It was so beautiful. I remember that first time, and I didn’t realize (at that time) I was going to live within spitting distance of that area.”

Today, he still finds inspiration in the natural beauty of the Valley and Hatcher Pass.

“As years have gone on, I think there are two parts to my art — the lowland art, like the Palmer fields, and there’s the highland art, which is up at Hatcher Pass,” Girard said. “I especially enjoy it up in the mountains.”

It’s that ethereal passion he hopes has been captured in his most recent show, which opens tonight at Stephan Fine Arts Gallery in Anchorage. While Valley galleries like Town Square in Wasilla and The Gallery in Palmer carry some of Girard’s landscapes, his Anchorage showing is different, he said, putting form to that passion. There are 16 pieces in the show and visitors “are going to see a lot of landscapes with a figurative element in there.”

A particular favorite is a work called “Sunset Dance,” which features a female figure dancing in the colorful light of a sunset.

“I like the sense of freedom in it and just the joy, and the feeling I had when I was at Hatcher Pass and experienced that lighting just after a storm,” he said. “It was so spectacular, it was like a religious experience.

“The pieces at my show at Stephan’s I think I really stretch myself and advance my art with those paintings.”

An art director for an Anchorage graphics arts company, Girard brings his talent to his full-time career as well. Although he admits if he lived in a perfect world, he’d paint all the time, he also gets to draw and paint on the job. His work there includes helping create the official Iditarod logo for the past 14 years.

But it’s talking about his painting that arouses Girard’s passion for art.

“I paint because there’s nothing else for me to do,” he said. “I have to. It’s like an urge to create. It’s like breathing.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.

IF YOU GO

What: Opening reception for Douglas Girard’s show.

Where: Stephan Fine Arts Gallery, Anchorage

When: Tonight, 5 to 8 p.m.

For info.: Call the gallery at 907-274-5009 for more information, or visit douglas-girard.com.