Brett X. Gamache holds an MFA in Painting from the University of New Hampshire along with a BFA from MassArt in Art Education and Painting. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Grant (Italy) and was recently awarded a Blanche E. Colman Award and the John Anson Kittridge Grant. He has received artist residency fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the C-Scape Dune Shacks in Provincetown, MA.
Curriculum Vitae
As a New England landscape painter, I work outdoors throughout the year, enduring the weather, and striving to capture nature’s ephemeral beauty with paint on canvas. For the past few seasons, I’ve painted on-sight in the treasured nature preserves in Ipswich, MA. I have found great artistic inspiration in painting the vast wetlands from atop the famous Crane Estate as well as deep within the meandering sand dunes that run along majestic Crane Beach.
With my painting materials strapped across my back and canvas in hand, I hike by foot to reach my desired painting locations. My favorite time of day to work is in the late afternoon when the sunlight casts beautiful blue shadows across the dunes. My aim is for these paintings to showcase the beauty and vital importance of the sacred seacoast and help shine a light on what is at stake of being lost at this crucial tipping point in the climate crisis.
On a formal level, my initial effort involves building the overall compositional design of the painting through the construction of large “abstract” color shape relationships. I work with a sense of urgency, often experimenting with the paint application, mark-making, and color intensity. My work is process-oriented and ranges from single-session premier coup pieces to large-scale multi-session paintings.