Artist Bio :: 2005

In 1971 Chris obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Saskatchewan which launched a career in teaching. During this first university experience Chris was encouraged by one of his teachers, Noni Mulcaster, a well known Saskatchewan artist, to take an art class as an elective. To his surprise, Chris found the experience very stimulating and vowed to pursue art, particularly painting, at some time in the future. In the early eighties Chris dabbled in painting whenever teaching and family duties allowed him the time to do so. However, it was not until the nineties that he began to paint extensively.

For Chris, this decade was one of many dramatic changes. Severe auditory problems resulted in a decision to leave teaching. In 1994, taking his age and disability into account, Chris decided to return to University of Saskatchewan and enter the Fine Arts program. This proved to be a happy choice and in 1999 Chris completed a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts with a major in painting, one of the high points in his life. However, 1999 also brought a low point when two months prior to his graduating show Chris was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Despite his health issues, Chris nonetheless continues working on his art.

It was during his stint at University that Chris joined a group of artists working at studios located at Leisureland in the countryside near Saskatoon. In this setting his work flourished, became progressively larger in scale and more intensely coloured. Today he continues to paint three, four and five foot paintings, the kind that make a strong statement and occupy a large space on the wall. He often tells purchasers that their walls will never feel the same again after one of his paintings hangs there for a while.

Two days prior to 9/11 vandals broke into this isolated countryside studio and destroyed much of the equipment and art work found in the second floor painting studios. Some artists lost nearly all of their recent pieces. Much of Chris’s art remained intact but he did not paint again for two and one-half years. For him the bloom had been lost at this location. In the meantime his studio sat silent and collecting dust, but clients still came to purchase works from the inventory he had built up over the years.

Much of Chris’s work is landscape driven. Landscapes have a common theme around edges where human activity and nature meet.. the border of a cultivated field and nature in its untouched state, the edge of a forest or perhaps the marks of a cut line through the wooded north country. The ongoing struggle of humankind’s intervention with nature and that need of individuals and industry to conquer, harness or subdue often underlies the work.

Chris’s colours tend not to be local. Both form and colour are not necessarily representational, but rather interpretational, reflecting the spirit of the place. Inspired by his travels Chris allows himself to “let go” in terms of colour and form allowing his intuitive creativity to complete the painting. He says that there is a stage in the development of the painting where the painting itself takes over and the original scene no longer provides the driving force. The painting develops a life of its own. Luscious colour and movement dominate his large scale works and are rampant in his abstractions.

While he has painted in water colours in the past, in recent years Chris’s works have been predominately in oils, acrylics and chalk pastels. Generally he utilizes oils in landscapes, acrylics in abstractions and chalk pastels in producing smaller works of the above.
 
In the fall of 2003, Chris relocated to Prince Albert, set up a large studio space and began to paint once again. Since then he has showed at The Red Door Gallery, (P.A.), Raymond James in Saskatoon, Joe Beans (Saskatoon), Art and All That Jazz (Saskatoon) and is presently preparing for another show at The Red Door Gallery in June.

Chris’s works of art are found in private collection locally, nationally and internationally. He continues to make his paintings available from his Central Avenue studio in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.