Douglas Bourgeois

Douglas Bourgeois (b. 1951, Louisiana) graduated from Louisiana State University in 1974 with a B.F.A. He worked in New Orleans for several years until he returned to live in St. Amant. He has received awards for his work throughout his career including a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship in 1992; a Southeastern Artist Fellowship from the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and R.J. Reynolds in 1987; and awards in the Visual Arts Fellowship from Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1981. Bourgeois is represented by Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans.

Born and raised in Saint Amant, Loui­siana, where he lives today, Bourgeois went to Catholic school (he once intended to become a priest) at the time when rock and roll and R&B music exploded, and he therefore reveres the two themes, music and religion, equally in his work. In Womack and Del Rey (2014), two Ameri­can singers—one who is young today, one shown in his younger days—perform on what appears to be the surface of the moon, littered with empty vessels and a half-drained hourglass. Bobby Womack grins, guitar in hand, while the ever-melancholy Lana Del Rey turns away from him and from us, serenading Earth. In other works, religion manifests more bla­tantly, as in the series in which saints appear to bystanders, or it remains buried like a clue, as in the detailed image of a Sacred Heart in a light bulb. Bourgeois touches on issues of domestic violence, poverty, and racial injustice.