When you visit our gallery, don't walk by Doug Peterson's paintings too quickly. Let the colors of his vision rub off on you. Deep colors, Arresting colors. They're what make Doug Peterson's paintings come alive, almost ignite.

"In my artistic life, passion trumps reason, always. I am controlled by my passion for color. Trout and salmon are part of that passion, perhaps the foundation. They provide the lines, the texture. But my dreams are of the colors, the rapturous hues of fish in pure cold water. The dark of pools holding fish, real and imaginary. Reds, blues, pinks and yellows evolve to ghostlike images of trout holding together in invisible current. I never tire of contemplating that, one of the true mysteries of nature."

Doug Peterson is an angler, a lover of the prairie where he grew up, a former state legislator, and currently president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, a defender of the small family farm and promoter of locally grown foods. He and his wife Ellie live in St. Paul parttime and at their home in southwest Minnesota whenever they can. Shy about his political affiliations, he will on occasion be moved to reveal that one of his paintings hangs in the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar in Washington, D.C.