Mike Torma artworks are pieces that echo both the overt charm of the artist’s atelier tradition, and the covert realities of his twenty-five years of military service, from Viet Nam through the first Iraq war. Throughout, he marries classical and contemporary methods, palettes, and themes.
About Mike’s Military Career
Rank: Brigadier General, USAF Medical Corps, Retired. Last served: Command Surgeon for Strategic Air Command, Offutt AFB, Nebraska. Span of service: 1967-1992, 2 highest decorations- USAF Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters. He was Senior Surgeon for the Mayaguez rescue and for Operation Babylift during Viet Nam. He is credited with the invention of a life saving stomach operation for the wounded, a new type of laparoscopic instrument, and an extraction technique for injured personnel working inside missile silos. He worked on an air-mobile operating room pod design for C-130s. He was a military negotiator with the Israelis and the Syrians after the Beirut barracks bombing, and he was on the first military medical negotiation team to Moscow during Glasnost.
About Mike’s Fine Arts Career
The artist was awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree from Rockhurst University in Kansas City. He also studied briefly at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. Subsequent mentors have included Martha Mayer Erlebacker, Anthony Rider, (and more recently) Lea Wight, Kerry Dunn, and Robert Liberace.
Mike Torma artworks —Juried works have resulted in the “Roster” and “Collectible” appellations through Shreveport Regional Arts Council, the highest exhibition tier with Bossier Arts Council, and two awards by the Hoover Watercolor Society. Solo and conjoint exhibits have included Central Art Station, Artspace, the Agora Borealis, the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum, and the artist’s current home, the Bailey Gallery in Shreveport. He has also shown at 1800 Prime in Bossier City, as well and both the Steve Jarrett and Creason’s Fine Arts galleries in New Orleans. He has works at the Creative Exchange in Ruston, La, and paintings for the March 2022 Covid exhibit at BPCC, Bossier City, La. He is a member of Oil Painters of America and the Portrait Society of America. Commissioned works, whether drawings or paintings in oil or watercolor— as well as his gallery pieces, are appearing with increasing frequency in the homes of discerning collectors throughout the South.
To find out more about Mike and see more of his works please visit HIS WEBSITE.