What People Are Saying
Calendar produced by the Veterans Administration for the VA/VSA Arts Artist-in-Residence Program in 2001 featuring Paul Bouchard's Line in the Sand #2 on the cover.
Bouchard's work was also featured on the 2000 calendar.
Interview on Radio Free Brooklyn Podcast with DJ Francesca
Jan. 18, 2023 (go to time code 1:03:20)
https://www.radiofreebrooklyn.org/show-archive/?episode=RADIO3681146940&epuid=742c3114-30d4-11eb-9e9c-8359918ef6af
Interview on The Packaged Tourist Show Podcast
Nov. 17, 2023
https://anchor.fm/matthew-dibiase/episodes/Paul-Bouchard-interview-emkk53/a-a3sj3vc
"Bouchard represents iconic images of the universal immutable flag which are ravaged - nearly destroyed. But though mutilated and stained. These strong iconic images maintain their dignity."
Marie De Alcuaz
Curator, Municipal Gallery, Barnsdall Park
Los Angeles CA
"Paul Bouchard's art becomes emblematic of the motions between perfection and the experience of age. His fragmented military flags suggest objects once complete, now transfigured as proud relics."
Michael S. Bell
Assistant Director of Cultural Affairs
San Francisco Art Commission
San Francisco, CA
"Paul, I've been waiting a long time to see art which is strong and beautiful" [at the Los Angeles Art Association Opening of "Artists You Should Know" exhibit, 1987]
Helen Lundeberg
painter, Los Angeles Art Association Opening of "Artists You Should Know" exhibit director
Los Angeles, CA
"Missing Peace #11 is a work of art that says much in a very subtle language, and what it says is very moving, though what moves us may not be articulated in words. It does what art can do but not words; reach us emotionally, without being bound by the limitations of language. The title is like the title of a poem, directing our thoughts toward somber feelings that have to do with war and peace, feelings that are exorcised by the sheer beauty of Missing Peace No. 11.
While the overall shape might have been derived from the purity of geometry, that purity survives here only as a memory, acting in opposition to the ragged, roughly torn edges, and the aggressive, worn texture of the surface. The vivid tactile nature of this texture affects every passage in the work, making the form, for all its internal variety, a single fabric, in the way a painting by Monet is unified by the overall texture of the paint. The parts meld together to form a single entity, unity being a requirement of works of art that qualify as great. There is a wonderful sense of the stars either sinking into, or emerging from the surface while remaining integral to it. Not coincidentally, the star form, when clearly drawn with straight lines, refers to the golden proportion of the overall shape, since each line of a pentagram is divided at the golden ratio point. This can still be made out in the star forms, even as they seem to be dissolving before our eyes. At the same time the stars set up subtle diagonal forces within the composition which lead to an interaction with the edges. This is particularly clear in the left hand star, where a diagonal line leads to one side of the cut-out on the left border of the work, while the cut out itself is a shape in harmony with the left side of the stars. This all has to do with what one should look for in any true work of art - the order, the harmonizing and unifying factors which separate art from non-art things.
But there are also here the tensions introduced by the lesser passages, which contrast with and pull against the dominant sense of order in the compositional theme. The diagonals in the stars oppose the right angles of the corners; the ragged borders introduce, into this ordered scheme, the randomness of forms in nature. It is the tensions generated by these contrasts that produce the powerful energy behind the great beauty we experience in Missing Peace No. 11."
Professor Emeritus James K. Kettlewell
Skidmore College
"Memories Drive Artistic Work of Visual Information Specialist"
Article in Naval Warfare Assessment Division (NWAD) Newsletter
Salmagundi Club 2022 "Journey Onward" Show - Featured Artist on Show Web Announcement
