A proud descendent of his paternal ancestor Joseph Broussard de Beausoleil, the hero of the Acadian resistance during the Grand Derangement, who led the band of exiles to Southwest Louisiana in 1764. On his mother’s side, he claims Louis Arceneaux, the tragic literary figure Gabriel in Longfellow’s poem Evangeline. There is no finer pedigree for an authentic view of South Louisiana and its sky , the subject of his September Show:
When you give a toddler a box of eight crayons and ask them to draw what they see outside, they will grab whichever one delights them to color the sky. Sadly. when you give the second grader a box of sixteen crayons and ask them to draw the outside, they will grab the blue, and only the blue..only the sky blue. But if we adults or children, artists or not, look up without judgement or preconceived notions, we’ll see that the sky actually offers all the colors in the box of sixty-four crayons with the sharpener on the back, the one we all wanted as children but rarely got. There is no “right” way to color the sky. The sky is an ever-evolving composition, fleeting moments of light and atmosphere. The pieces in this collection seek to move beyond the single-stick color and explore the blends, the gradients, the unexpected combinations that nature creates every day.
Although his interest in art began at an early age, formal training began about the age of thirty. Progressing from watercolor medium to oil, he studied for six years with Master Portrait painter, Carl Groh II. Oil painting gave him the means of achieving more depth in color. The richness of the medium, usually applied to board, compliments the subject and style of his work. His paintings are distinguished by jewel-like tones and glazes, enhanced by a painterly old master style. Broussard often paints on location where he does rapid color sketches, which he finishes in his studio. His paintings are muted but dramatic with defining plays of light and shadow. They surely evoke a sharp sensory awareness of the sky, fields or marsh mud in his fleeting impressions of the land. When I’m sitting on the side of the road, I put on some Cajun music like the Balfa Brothers. Dewey Balfa is really involved in the culture. I’m drawn to those bluesy French songs that go deep into a person’s soul. It helps bring out the soul in my paintings. It is nostalgic for me. Everybody has a mental image of a place of serenity. To me, it’s the South Louisiana coastal marshes and prairie. It’s the rice fields, the smells, the serenity.
