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dOUGLAS SMARCH

Lives and works Teslin, Yukon, Canada

SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.mastersoftoday.com

Douglas Raymond Smarch Jr. is a member of the kokaahittan (Raven) Clan.
He was born to Doug and Jane (nee Smith) Smarch in 1967 in whitehorse,
Yukon. Doug was raised in a traditional lifestyle with his four brothers and
his parents in Teslin Yukon. They fished, hunted and trapped occasionally.
“My parents were resourceful. My mother made all of our own clothing.
My father was a rancher, miner and outfitter. He was a fixer. He could build
boats and later he learned to build snowshoes.” Doug always was creative.
“I would go down and look in the toy store and then I would go home and
try and copy the toys that I saw. I did that because I felt that I was capable
of creating anything.”
“when I was given my Tlingit name gahaa (A Raven who Sits and Looks)
that’s what I am ‘a raven who sits and looks’. I am a stone, bone and wood
carver but my passion now is in animation. I have a graduate degree from the
University of California, Los Angeles from 2004. A bachelor of Fine Arts from
the San Francisco Arts Institute and an associates degree from the Institute
of American Indian Arts and I studied sculpture in Pietrasanta, Florence, Pisa,
Siena, Italy.” Doug’s art work is in public and private collections around the
world. His exhibitions include but are not limited to: the San Francisco Art
Institute, the S.A.w /Ottawa Ontario gallery, The Museum of Anthropology
in vancouver, the world Exposition Center in Aichi, Japan and the Museum
of Native Americans in zurich, Switzerland. Doug’s most recent exhibition
was for the 2007 Canada winter games entitled ‘Burning Cold’. This was a
Canada wide (nine judge) juried show and Doug was the only Yukon artist
selected to exhibit. He was awarded ‘the best emerging artist in Canada’
representing the Yukon. “I am always looking for materials and I am finding
there are limitations to packing around tools for the carvings, it creates time
limitations. Animating in three dimensional allows me to still work through
my imagination and it gives me the time to then produce it. I am able with
computers to plug into the source of my imagination and express my soul. I
can take images and freeze them. If I want the computer to carve this for me
it can. It enables me to go further into history. It allows me to leave nothing
out.” Doug’s love of contemporary art enables himself to be shown. ‘Fog
Light’ (Burning Cold Exhibition/2007 Canada games) was created based on
the tradition of observation and the opaqueness of winter and birds flying..“If
I live for a thousand years I will look at and think differently about information
that is presented to me. I have a difficult time with the defining of ‘traditional
artist’. Fog Light is about birds flying around fish camp. The memory of people
is a funny thing. One hundred years ago I think about the red robes and cloth
we used and still use today to sew our blankets with; well, at one time that
red cloth must have been viewed by the Tlingit Nation as contemporary. I
make traditional bird breasted headdresses. The oldest garments that I can
find within my culture are what I am inspired to do, and by choice.”
Douglas Raymond Smarch Jr
 eraseD, 2006 INSTALLATION - wHITE PAINT, wHITE CLOTHINg, MYSELF, BAMBOO wINDOw
BLINDS, STRINg 10x10x10 FT. / 300x300x300 CM.
eraseD, 2006 INSTALLATION 10x10x10 FT. / 300x300x300 CM. 
eraseD, 2006 INSTALLATION 10x10x10 FT. / 300x300x300 CM.. 
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