Mike LaRosa is an accomplished pharmacist, designer, marathoner, and world traveler. Mike spent five years living in Center City Philadelphia before moving to Maine in 2013, and holds a Doctor of Pharmacy from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a Bachelor's in Engineering from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. Mike is a self-taught artist who has been painting for the past thirteen years between a full-time career, travel, and home life. He now paints through LaRosa Studios while continuing more than twenty-five years of pharmacy work. He draws influences from music, cinema, architecture, conceptual abstractions, popular culture, Maine landscapes, and world travel. The scope of his work is to draw on images of the world around us through consistent joy and re-examination, with each piece arriving at the result of self-discovery, examination of the creative process, and the possibility of what can be achieved. Mike pairs hard-edge precision with the open color of the Maine coast. "When you have hard edges, you look at it, you know exactly what you're looking at. Boundary and color make sense together," he says of his approach. In paintings like Maine Island, inspired by Deer Isle and his family's yearly visits to Aragosta in Stonington, Mike pairs warm beach tones at the bottom with a brilliant expansive sky above. Alongside the hard-edge work, his abstract pieces remain more searching, layered, and intuitive. Mike's passions include food, downhill skiing, chess, guitars, and fine cigars in the summer. He resides with his wife Laura, a family physician, their son MJ, and their yellow lab Leo in Norway, Maine. Learn more about Mike LaRosa on Radio Maine.