Ron Fortier Collection

"My focus is on creating figurative narrations, within a historical context, about representative groups, or specific individuals caught in dilemmas created by circumstances beyond their control. The characters in my narratives are portrayed in the throes of a defining moment.

I explore documented events in my family and historical episodes. My goal is to continue investigating the uncomfortable realities of the past and, in some cases, to spotlight how they still affect the present. The paradoxes that I explore reveal the travesties of inhumanity and the lack of much-needed altruism.

I depict these situations within a psychological reality or dream-like state, rather than detailed or photographic realism. 

 The response to my work has ranged from revulsion, tears, anger, and the viewer’s overwhelming need to thank me for my exposing a forgotten historical reality or the lesson of the subject’s horrible and unbearable experiences.

 I hold a B.F.A. from Southeastern Massachusetts University in Painting and an M.F.A. from the University of Miami in Painting. My background includes owning and operating two advertising agencies, teaching Art and Art History at Bristol Community College, and teaching marketing at the Charlton College of Business at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

My studio is located at my home in Fairhaven, and, for a time, I also maintained one in Figueira da Foz, Portugal where I once lived."