Michael E. Vermette ’80

michaelevermette.com

Michael E. Vermette double majored in Painting and Printmaking at the Maine College of Art, receiving his B.F.A Painting degree in 1980. He is a full-time painter who is recently retired from K-12 Maine Indian Art Education after 35 years. Recently Michael has won the Joseph Santoro Memorial Award at the New England Watercolor Society where he is a signature member. He was also the inaugural Allagash Wilderness Waterway artist–in-residence and has published a book called 50 Plus One, that chronicles his two-week immersion experience into this 92-mile waterway and the 50 plus paintings that he created within the two-week program. “Michael Vermette is on a similar mission: to reveal the currents and energy of his surroundings, be it on Monhegan Island, in Baxter State Park or, most recently, along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. With a lively brush and an acute sense of motion and light, Vermette creates that harmony that runs adjacent to the natural world while rejoicing in its sheer magnificence. “ -Carl Little, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors magazine, May/June 2021. Michael is intrigued with the timelessness in change in his figurative and landscape paintings. He believes that visual rightness is captured in his paintings when active humanity engages with nature to become an even deeper metaphor of truth. He has a passion for thick color and light with emphasis on the expressive painterly mark, which he feels captures the very soul of the painter. He considers himself a modern Impasto oil painter utilizing various different sized palette knives and paint-loaded brushes that are expressive to his character. In his oils, watercolors, and pastels he emboldens color by putting into practice traditional methods of the masters to cause the pigment to be brighter, richer, and more translucent. Careful watchfulness and attention to understated detail, descriptive movement, purity of light, and the uniqueness of the atmosphere are all characteristics of his personality. In Maine, his works have been shown in various galleries and museums and he is represented at the Gleason Fine Art Gallery in Boothbay Harbor, the Frame and Art Gallery in Falmouth, and the Lupine Gallery on Monhegan Island.