Discover Delmarva Arts: Mike Rosato
CAMBRIDGE, Md. — From museum walls, to busy downtowns, and even train cabooses, artist Michael Rosato’s murals can be found all over the Eastern Shore.
His large-scale artwork transforms blank canvases into stories of history, culture, and community.
In his downtown Cambridge studio, Rosato’s visions take shape – painting his murals on canvas before bringing them to life on buildings. But before he picks up his brush, Rosato immerses himself in research.
“You interview locals, you interview fishermen, you interview the business owners, people that have lived there a long time, they start telling you stories,” Rosato said.
Like in his famous Chesapeake Mural Trail, many of Rosato’s murals are snapshots of history, capturing the spirit, culture, and heritage of communities like the Pocomoke Indian Nation, and Cambridge’s African American community before the Civil Rights Movement.
“I tell a lot of stories of communities I’m not from. You really have to have an open heart and an open ear to be able to convey their story with respect, with honesty, with integrity, and something that they can have pride in,” Rosato said.
For Rosato, research is how he ensures that he’s honoring each community’s story.
“When the painting is done, it doesn’t leave the studio until I know I’ve exceeded my expectations in the process. Then I know when it goes out there, I don’t have to ever look back, you know, that it is the best that I could do,” Rosato said.
In Take My Hand, Rosato invites viewers to step inside the scene, adding elements that make the art feel alive.
“What I want them to do is I want them to immediately be drawn in by something. So, if you look at a lot of my murals, there’s always something in the foreground that draws them, in Harriet Tubman her hand’s reaching out, in Chincoteague, the crab is like 15 feet long. It’s massive,” Rosato said.
Each mural contains details so intricate that you notice something new every time you look.
“You see, there’s a path that goes in, and what’s along that path? You start to identify animals. I want them to go through a whole experience of the subject matter I’m painting about. I don’t want it to be one look and be gone. I want them to look at it and be drawn in closer and closer,” Rosato said.
