Maris Platais, a native of Latvia, has lived in New England since 1949. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the Boston Museum School. After serving in the United States Marine Corps, he worked as an advertising executive, both corporate and freelance, while concurrently teaching drawing at the Museum of Fine Arts. Since 1982, he has devoted his full time to the fine arts. He lectures and demonstrates to art associations throughout the Northeast. He has served as a juror for many organizations, including the New England Watercolor Society.
Mr. Platais has had exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, and has won four Awards for Excellence in the International Marine Art Exposition at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. His work was also included in the Top 100 six times in the Arts for the Parks competition in Jackson Hole, WY. In 1996, 1997, and 1999, he received the Honors Award in graphics from the Academic Artists Association in Springfield, MA.
His works have also been exhibited at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Worcester Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, and in many private galleries from Maine to San Francisco.
“Simply put, I’m not trying to be political or say what is wrong with the world. As I see it, in a subtle way I am saying what is right with it, he said. When I paint or draw a landscape, I am seeing a much more complex thing than just trees, streams, clouds, boats. I am seeing a harmony of colors, of place, of feeling, of atmosphere, and that is something I like to share with people.”