Charles Vermaas paints and draws landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. He also creates objects and installations and publishes books and poems with themes drawn from contemporary social and political issues. His work has been shown internationally, with exhibits at the Loerakker Gallery in Amsterdam, Multiple XX in Rotterdam, the Revolution 100.000.000 etcetera Gallery in Middelburg, and La Ferronerie Gallery in Paris. His publications include Back Ground Zero, WWN (World Wide News), ART WORKS, and Poems.
He started his career as a set and costume designer. In 1997, Vermaas established his own design firm with Paul van Beek (Paul van Beek Landschappen), in Amsterdam. He has overseen a number of projects for the firm, including designs for courtyards at the Royal Dutch Blast Furnaces and Steelworks (now Tata Steel) at IJmuiden and the Kazerne Dossin Museum (and Holocaust) Memorial in Mechelen Belgium; classic parterres within the reconstruction of the Oud Crailo estate; the masterplanning for Rotterdam The Hague Airport; a contemporary park around the Oud-Aa villa at Breukelen; the reconstruction of the Lemmer–Delfzijl Waterway in the north of The Netherlands; coastal landscapes in the province of Zeeland in the south of The Netherlands; and the landscape between Le Bourget and Charles de Gaulle airports in Paris.Vermaas has taught at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam.
In 2011, he and Paul van Beek published Landscapology: Learning to landscape the city, a book reflecting on the “how to” in education and practice for landscape architecture and urban design.