Born and raised on the coast of Maine, and surrounded by Acadia National Park, I have always had a deep fascination with edges: edge of land, edge of storm, edge of day. These intense intersections, these meetings of extremes - of land and sea, storm and clear, day and night - give rise to such spectacular and yet fleeting beauty, evoking both the timeless and the transient, as well as the temporal cyclicality that unites these extremes of existence. The coastline comes alive at the point where it greets the sea, and the evening sky is set alight by departing storm clouds. Through my paintings, I endeavor to capture the power and beauty of these moments at the edges of Acadia and Ireland.
My work with portraiture is an invaluable counterpoint to my landscapes painting. While the landscape offers the opportunity to work with broad strokes, to step back and focus on the grandeur of the larger scene, portraits enable me to become absorbed in the intricate details of the face, that landscape of experience, thought, memory, and the site of human interaction. While this focus may seem more confined, the face reflects a richness and depth of experience and emotion that rivals the scope of the landscape. For each person, the face holds countless stories, stories hinted at with the subtlest glint of an eye, or a twist of the mouth, and suggestive of those deep moments of joy, sadness, love, and humor which comprise each of us. It is this depth, and these stories, that I seek to capture in my portraits.
Chris is currently accepting commissions for landscape and portrait painting. He has created oil paintings for a number of clients from Dallas to Istanbul.
Chris has completed design work for a range of events, organizations, and individuals, from the 2014 poster design for the Maine Celtic Celebration, to the logo for the Maine Saint Andrew's Pipes and Drums, and the website design and development for Acadia Real Estate and MDIPiper.com.