Bio:
History painting dominates F. Douglas Blanchard's work as it dominated the Enlightenment, and for good reason. Although history painting was virtually lost as a casualty of Enlightenment ideals themselves, the motivation for democratic changes was never lost. As he admits defensively, Blanchard's work falls in the radical discontinuity between contemporary art and historical art. The dominant art of today tends to be about the personal, and artists have advanced civil rights through their work, using art to be revolutionaries from the inside. Meanwhile a profound revolution is taking place with events immediately visible from the outside. Blanchard is a chronicaller of these historic events. Originally trained as an art historian, Blanchard has an eye for the dramatic possibilities of the picture plane, offering a visual context for our times with the art of the past.

Artist Statement:
My work is about life as I understand it from my corner of experience. The struggles of life in the face of negation and extinction compel me in particular. A lot of my work concentrates on gay male experience. The issues of sexuality, dignity, love, occupy my attentions as they do for everyone. I hope that my work plays some role in burying the commonplace notion that gays and lesbians are "immoral" by definition. Much of my current work shows the lives of people who challenged convention and acted in ways that were very deeply moral. The people whose lives I paint faced poverty, intimidation, violence, and death. They acted courageously to liberate, to make justice, and to stake a claim upon history.

People frequently ask about my choice of styles in painting as if I had chosen a dress off the rack or a new software program to learn. In form and technique, my painting is pre-modern. But, it is so much more than simply one style among many. I've spent a lifetime trying to master this kind of painting, and I am still far from the facility and confidence that I desire. This art form requires conviction. The artist who pursues it has to believe in painting. The artist must believe that there are realms of thought and sensibility that only painting can touch. No other art form no matter how technologically novel can reach them. The experience of a still life by Chardin, an altarpiece by Rubens, an African rock painting, a landscape by Kuo Hsi, an abstraction by Diebenkorn is absolutely inimitable. In order to do this kind of painting successfully, the artist has to believe in the senses and how they describe the world. This fundamental bodily experience of the world is valuable for its own sake. The world described by our senses is the world we inhabit and for which we are responsible. If these convictions are lacking, then the figurative artist will produce nothing but a paint-by-numbers imposture.

Contact:
F. Douglas Blanchard
256 East 10th street #3B
New York, NY 10009