Artist's Profile

I paint landscapes of New England, mostly in oils, sometimes in watercolors. While I do on occasion paint scenes of the region's interior, especially Vermont, most of my work is of the New England coast - the marshes, creeks, inlets and quiet anchorages that I find particularly captivating, especially when they combine a pleasant upland scene with a view of the sea.

Boats and the sea have always been a large part of my life. In my younger days I spent summers on Cape Cod sailing my leaky little 12' wooden cat boat out of Scorton Creek in East Sandwich, along the dunes of Sandy Neck and into Barnstable Harbor, trying to keep the mast out of the water in the gusty southwest winds that blew off the hot summer beach. Things were a lot wilder on the Cape then; there were very few boats on the water and there was very little development along the beaches and, of course, there were no cell phones. If you were out on the water alone and went over, well, that was probably going to be that.

I spent an embarassing amount of time tempting fate in that little boat but eventually it came to an end when I went off to Tufts and Yale to learn something besides small boat survival tactics. The busy years that followed, working and raising a family, didn't permit as much time as I would have liked for boating but I did manage to squeeze in a 16' Town class sloop, a 26' ketch rigged Chesapeake Bay Sharpie, a 15' Marshall Sandpiper, a 30' Tartan, an 18' wooden Novi built out of pine, spruce, oak and iron clinch nails in Shag Harbor, Nova Scotia by a 94 year old builder - $850 brand new and painted, best boat I ever owned. But after a while I sold it because the kids wanted to go faster. I think I cried a little as I watched it leave my driveway on someone else's trailer. I replaced it with a 15' Whaler which the kids monopolized most of the time for water skiing. Not a bad boat but I never really bonded with it. Of course there were lots of other little boats along the way too - dinghies, sea kayaks, inflatables and canoes. Now I'm enjoying a 15' modified Amesbury dory which my wife and I find perfect for quahoging and fishing in the bay.

I've had some experience with larger boats too, having spent time aboard the John Cabot, a Canadian ice breaker, the USBCF Albatross, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's submersible, Alvin. I still get the willies when I remember the anxious hours spent in the dark, inside that small steel sphere, deep down on the Continental Shelf, hoping the batteries wouldn't quit while we tried to get Alvin untangled from discarded fishing gear and cables that we had accidentally drifted into. Probably the most memorable project I was involved with in those days was an expedition off Newfoundland trying to take the world's longest core sample from the bottom sediment. A lot of hair-raising tales can be told about that expedition but I can see we're going to be here forever if these sea stories continue so we better get back to painting.

I took up painting because the photographs I would take on my travels never seemed to come out right. While pretty good from a technical standpoint, they always failed to capture the feeling of a place, the mood and atmosphere, which to me is the whole thing.

So I began a long process of studying art and painting, hoping that I could create with oils and brush and canvas what was missing from a photograph. I had always liked the impressionists Monet, Pissarro and Cezanne. I admired the freshness of their brushwork and their ability to get to the truth of a scene. I also liked the post-impressionist Seurat for his innovative use of color and for the structure and composition he put back into painting. At first I tried to emulate their style but now, after almost twenty years of studying and painting, I have developed my own style which I think has evolved into a modern form of impressionism combining the clean and careful look and the vibrant colors of Seurat with a touch of the freshness of the impressionists while still retaining a classic look. But most of all, I hope that some of my life experiences come through in my work and that I am able to bring to my paintings a strong feeling for the outdoors and the sea.

Presently I live with my wife Pam on the edge of a salt marsh in Duxbury, Massachusetts. I exhibit at galleries and shows up and down the East Coast. My paintings are in collections from Florida to Maine. I have been fortunate to have received numerous awards over the years.

If you would like to see a painting or a print, please email or call so we can set up an appointment.

Bernard Korites

190 Duck Hill Road

Duxbury, Massachusetts

(781)934-0903

bkorites@comcast.net

www.korites.com