Douglas Bourgeois was born in Saint Amant, Louisiana, and the intense character of Southern landscape and culture is a lingering component in his work. Bourgeois finds inspiration and influence from biographical fantasies, tributes to pop icons, discarded paper media, religious iconography and the mysterious life of objects.

As a child, he attended Catholic school and had once intended to become a priest, but rock and roll music gained popularity around the same time, influencing him to alter his career choice. Themes of music and religion play out equally in his work. Bourgeois' early style was influenced by the visionary outsider artists and the raw expressive extravagance of Chicago Imagism. ...