Surette’s one-hour show is an artistic and theatrical experience incorporating rapid-fire artwork, multicolored lights, fake smoke and flames, video images on 40-foot screens, magic, movie clips, and dramatic music. He paints two-handed, four brushes per hand, making what at first appears to be a confusing mess. He surprises audiences with a final flourish that makes the portrait suddenly become clear.

Amazing Hero Art took four years to become a full-time business operated out of his home studio in North Andover, Mass. He has been hired by Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Boston Bruins, and invited to appear coast to coast and abroad. He doesn’t usually travel far, because he and his wife, a physical therapist, have two young children. “I have a great gig right here in New England,” he says. He travels with a van full of computerized sound and lighting equipment, which he programs “down to a hundredth of a second.”

He loves performing at charity events, with his final products auctioned off to benefit medical research or nonprofit organizations. He also does religious shows and values-based school shows featuring his own heroes: Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln. “At the end of my life I want to be one of those people who looks back and feels like they made a difference.”

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