Girard Drouillard

  • Girard Drouillard

  • Girard Drouillard was born in Detroit, Michigan. From 1972 - 1981, the artist attended the Reading University in Great Britain, The University of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island School of Design. Some of his early artistic influences included Hans Hoffman, Frank Stella, Gerhard Richter, Robert Rauschenberg and Antoni Tapies.

    Drouillard, a painter and sculptor, has worked with virtually every art medium since 1976. He has a strong background in painting, performance art, photography, printmaking an sculpture.

    “My paintings initially emerged as rather ambiguous, raw, emotionally abstract compositions. I developed a more structured aesthetic in the mid-1980’s mixing media and incorporating a more definitive style of bold colour, hard-edge and texture. I have since thrown most of my brushes aside. They have become obsolete in deference to the gestural quality and scale of my work. This has greatly enhance a free-fall affect and spontaneity in my recent pieces.”

    Drouillard now applies rich pools of pure, wet colour on his canvas by laying out broad, sweeping marks of pigment with blades and knives. Drouillard’s imagery, both two and three dimensional may be best described as uniquely dramatic, and powerful. “This is action painting with a twist. I wish to share the aftermath with my audience. I thrive on the subsequent emotional and visual dialogue.”

    The artist’s visual dialogue incorporates a delicately balanced palette of colour, space and rhythm. “Images appear within my paintings. I simply extract and assemble them...they stand alone.” His sculpture is a personified extension of his painting.
    Drouillard has been producing and exhibiting his art throughout the USA and abroad since 1978. Drouillard is an award recipient of the American National Artists’ Liason Fine-art Competition in Contemporary Painting. The artist’s works are currently incorporated in both public and private collections worldwide.