Doughlas Remy’s mixed-media works lie somewhere on a continuum between assemblage and what might be called “two-dimensional sculpture.” Many of them incorporate the kinds of “pre-formed” elements that Seitz describes—elements that were not originally intended to serve as art materials. These may include machine parts, objets trouvés, and various bric-à-brac that the artist fuses into an ensemble whose beauty and significance will, he hopes, surpass those of the sum of its constituent parts. But Remy also uses the more traditional art materials—paints, hydrocal, glass, resin, inks, and dyes—to bind and to integrate those pre-formed elements. In some of his works, the pre-formed elements may be almost entirely missing, whereas in others, they may predominate.

Whatever the balance between non-art and art materials in these works, they are invariably sculpturesque, not because one can place them in the center of a room and move around them, but because their surfaces are in heavy relief, with depths up to three inches. The almost “protean” quality of the works is due not just to Remy’s use of reflective and refractive materials but also to the viewer’s changing angle of vision and the varying intensities and sources of light where the works are displayed. An errant ray of evening sunlight catching some part of one of these works can produce a magical moment.

And “magical” is what it is all about. There is always something magical about both the artist’s creative act and the viewer’s creative response to it. In assemblage, the alchemical overtones are very strong, for the artist creates value out of what may be perceived as worthless and transforms multiplicity into unity.

Remy's works have often been described as "shrine-like." Their symmetry, composition and use of color are reminiscent of Byzantine and Renaissance art. Remy, however, intends no deeper meanings, and shuns explicit iconography. The delight of these works may be purely visual. It is for the viewer to decide.

Notable exhibits of Remy’s work over the past seven years have been at Gallery 33 in Portland, ArtsWest in Seattle, the University of Minnesota’s Nash Gallery, Dimensions Design Center in Bellevue, Seattle's VIVEZA Gallery, the Blue Heron Art Gallery on Vashon Island (WA), the Depot Arts Center in Anacortes (WA), the Whatcom Museum of Art and Culture in Bellingham (WA), Bellevue Arts Museum, and Contemporary Crafts Gallery in Portland, OR.