Utah painter Douglas Aagard grew up in Montana and spent a great deal of time in nearby national forests and in the Bitterroot Valley. “I would spend all that time outdoors and then come home and try to draw what I had seen. That’s how it all got started with me,” he says. “I started gravitating toward nature early and I never lost interest.”
Genola Farm, oil, 16 x 24”
Aagard is still captivated by the landscapes of the American West, and he will be showing paintings at a new show, Chasing Light, beginning November 5 at Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Like many of his works, color is one of the driving forces, which is why he is often drawn to fall scenes with their intense gold, orange and yellow hues. “Some people will say I exaggerate my colors, but to me they’re accurate. That’s just how they feel to me. I might get a little brighter than the truth, but my colors are how I feel about what I’m seeing,” the artist says, adding that he paints almost exclusively with a palette knife. “I picked it up in 1999 or so. It was a perfect marriage right from the beginning. I had never thought I would use one, but then I tried it and got hooked. Now I use it for pretty much everything. It’s easier to clean, it’s easy to sculpt with the paints, it’s easy to apply it on the canvas, it’s easier to layer wet on wet—it’s just much more convenient all around for me.”
Fire Water, oil, 36 x 30”
New works in the show include Genola Farm, which depicts bales of hay staggered out across a field. In the distance is a large mountain, the details of which are lost amid bluish-purple shadows that form this amazing shape of earth that rises over the scene. A more subtle variation of the mountain exists in Green Pastures and Purple Hills, in which the foreground radiates with mesmerizing greens as two horses graze in the distance. 
Green Pastures and Purple Hills, oil, 16 x 24”
For Fire Water, Aagard “went a little crazy” as he layered on chunks of color that form the tree’s color-shifting leaves. “I like to do those paintings. They’re so much fun. Sometimes I need a pick-me-up and one of the those paintings will do it for me,” he says. “When
Squaw Peak Maple, oil, 36 x 24”
I paint a place I don’t want all the details, but I do want all the feelings. I also don’t want anything to modern or impressionistic. If you’re taken out of the presence of the painting then I’ve lost you and I could have done it more loosely. I want you to stay there within the painting, and for the painting to let you do that.”—
Upcoming Show
Up to 12 works
November 5-27, 2021
Manitou Galleries
123 W. Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501,
(505) 986-0440, www.manitougalleries.com
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