Douglas Aagard

                 DOUGLAS AAGARD

            Douglas Aagard is a Utah landscape painter known for his use of color, texture and light. His subject matter is as varied as the Utah landscape itself. From the high mountain pines and aspens to sage and cedars with a whole lot of farmland in between. He lives in central Utah in a rural community with his wife and three children. He enjoys fishing, camping, working in his garden, and spending time with his family. He enjoys volunteering at the Senior Citizen Center as a boy scout and working with Boy Scouts. He has been a full time artist since 2002.

            His education includes General ED and drawing classes at Snow College and Salt Lake Community College. He also took a year of watercolor classes from Utah watercolor artist Harold Peterson, which he says made a world of difference in how he approached art. His primary education has come from studying great art and consulting other artists.

            Aagard began his career as a watercolor artist. In 2000, after seeing a show of paintings by Gary Ernest Smith he was hooked on the power possible with oil paints. With encouragement and feedback from Smith, he set his hand to paint oils with a knife.” I never get bored painting with oil. There are so many possibilities, so many techniques to try that one could never exhaust the love of learning.  I have found that my work has a more dimensional feel or depth when painted with knife, and often times the texture is more fun than the composition,” he says.       

            His paintings have won several state and local awards and shows in several galleries in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah. They are part of many museum, public, private and corporate collections. He has had solo exhibitions in Park City, Alpine, Ogden and Provo Utah, Palm Desert California, Ruidoso New Mexico and Scottsdale Arizona. He was featured in Southwest Art in Best of the West Nov. 2005 and 2006, and was featured in Western Art Collector Magazine Nov. 2007. He has an image in a Houghton-Mifflin textbook in conjunction with a Robert Frost poem “Pastures”, and also a book cover painting for a book of poetry.

                   ARTIST STATEMENT

            I approach art the same way I've approached any venture. Knowing I have much to learn, working to improve, and striving to be the best I can possibly be. The big difference is that art is the only occupation I have undertaken that I could entirely give myself to. To fully invest myself physically, mentally and spiritually.

            I search for the spirit or emotion a subject evokes in me, and strive to find a way to put it on canvas. It’s often a magical process. I love being an artist. There are so many wonderful

discoveries that are made through close scrutiny of the land whose wonder I would have totally missed had it not been for my profession. Thank you to all those who make it possible for me to continue.

                                                                                                           Douglas Aagard