Bermuda Through My Palette | July 3 – August 15, 2026

Key Dates (click the links to RSVP):
Opening Reception: Friday, July 3 | 5:30 – 7pm
Artist Talk: Tuesday, July 7 | 5:30 – 7pm

‘Bermuda’s unique light, shadow and colour is intrinsic in my work, and each piece represents a different time, feeling and energy.‘ – Michele Smith

Michele Smith’s distinctive visual language is rooted in a layered approach to painting that embraces spontaneity, texture, and the visible traces of artistic process. Her method begins in the background, where broad palette-knife strokes lay down an underpainting that remains visible, absorbed into the surface rather than concealed beneath it.

These early gestures often set the direction of the work. In one sunset scene, Coral Beach Hut, the composition emerges from fields of colour: reds, oranges, and yellows linger beneath a wash of blue sky. Across the canvas, darker colour fields take form, becoming a cliff sheltering a beach hut cast in shadow.

Smith’s vibrant palette strokes can be traced to the pair of cow portraits, which began with remnants of paint leftover on her palette. The expressive looseness that characterises her work emerges from this ongoing dialogue.

Plein air watercolour studies remain central to her development. She repeatedly returns to beloved Bermudian sites such as St. George’s and Spanish Point, revisiting earlier sketches and extending fleeting vignettes into more sustained compositions where architecture, landscape, and trace overlap. These studies act as a kind of visual memory, carrying fragments of place forward into the studio.

Smith’s use of colour gives these works their vitality. Responding to Bermuda’s light, she builds luminous combinations of pink, orange, turquoise, lavender, and deep blues that feel both observed and remembered. Working in acrylic, she scrapes, layers, and rebuilds the surface. Smith treats colour and gesture as if they too are as wild as the landscapes that she represents.

Exhibition Text by 2026 Summer Intern, Eva O’Connor.

Originally from Canada, Michele moved to Bermuda in 1985 and has been exploring art and capturing Bermuda’s colors in her work since joining the Bermuda Plein air painters in 2011.

Michele’s distinct style captures the essence of Bermuda with bold and colorful brush strokes. An Interior Designer by profession her works have been displayed in numerous art shows, and she was selected as one of 12 artists to provide a large-scale piece for Bermuda’s airport departure lounge in 2019.

Combining layers of acrylic or oil paints she enjoys building with color and texture in an impressionistic form, most recently using palette knife combined with large brushes. Watercolor studies provide loose plein air scenes in which she builds her larger pieces.