Art Exhibit ~ Doug Welch

I have been interested in illustrating my thoughts, images from my imagination and reconstructing real and imagined events since I was in grade school. I have had a growing fascination for different techniques and media and am always interested in giving those a try. Viewing this retrospective, I can clearly see the artists I was emulating at various phases like Edward Hopper, van Eyck, Botticelli, Bosch, Rembrandt, Goya, Ingres, JL David, Cezanne, Duchamp, Dali, Picasso, Gerhard Richter and many more; although with my idiosyncratic style and flawed execution, maybe viewers aren’t able to see the influences. I feel like all the works you see either capture a mood or feeling or tell a story.

I started off doing drawings and pencil art before I was given an opportunity to paint in high school. Capturing contours, describing shapes and attempting to represent weight and heft have been challenges I have focused on in one way or another. I would not describe myself as a colorist, but that facet of art is something I continue to work on. In college, I took life drawing and oil painting classes while studying and receiving a degree in Political Science.  It took me time to tackle the human form as a subject and I have been working on portraits for decades and still want to do more. Surveying the economic and human damage around me during the dawn of the postmodern 1990s made me want to retreat into art where I developed my illustration skills while learning graphic design. Other opportunities arose from working at art supply stores as a salesclerk and a picture framer and display designer where I got to interact with art students and artists and discussed techniques and philosophy. From 2000 to 2005 I worked for National Geographic Maps at their San Francisco office as a digital cartographer and packaging designer before becoming a freelancer.

Looking across the decades and seeing the pictures assembled here, the only unifying theme seems to be that I was into whatever I was into. Art history has always informed my work beginning with learning about the career of Pablo Picasso at the time of his death on a news segment made for children. Additionally public TV series such as Shock of the New and Ways of Seeing were massive influences on how I perceived, viewed and did art. Additionally, within art history, artists whose work touched on social and political themes have resonated with me. In this regard, outspokenly political artists and street artists have been my guides such as Pablo Picasso, George Grosz, Surrealists, Dadaists as well as artists who have exhibited a kind of social gospel like the Realists and Van Gogh and more recently, Banksy.

My own work has evolved as I have stretched myself to take on new techniques and new media. Overall I have moved from abstract work to illustrations and most recently I have been working on a graphic novel about the Ancient Rome. Most of my recent work has been illustration for friends’ music projects. Looking forward, I have plenty of unrealized projects that are in progress and love meeting other artists to talk about work and influences.

Finally, I want to thank some folks. Art instructors who really influenced and encouraged me were Danny Adams and Mike Almaguar. Rob Gibson and Alissa Mach are friends who encouraged and pushed me. And this exhibit would not have been possible without encouragement from Marisol Norzagaray and essential help from Cornelia Jensen.

Doug Welch

July 2024