Christopher Evans
Christopher Leith Evans was born in 1954 in Bremerton, Washington. He spent his childhood years on Long Island in the suburbs of New York City.
He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was awarded a Graduate Fellowship and taught courses in drawing. While at UCLA Evans studied with renowned figurative painters William Brice, James Valerio, Tom Wudl and David Hockney, as well as landscape painter James Doolin.
In the late 1970s Evans’ minimalist plein-air landscapes looking out at the Pacific Ocean and studio compositions of coastal Los Angeles explored affinities between modernist abstraction and perceptual representation in paintings that are both simple planes of color as well as windows into deep illusionistic space. His most recent landscapes of sky, trees and hills, reveal a deep interest in 19th c. traditions of landscape painting as timeless achievements in a search for artistic truth in Nature.
Evans’ work is represented in New York by two galleries - Fischbach and DFN. For three years starting in 2002 his “New York in the Light of Memory,” a six-point perspective, 360˚ panoramic view of the city painted on a sphere, was shown in a special exhibition space at the New York Historical Society. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith described the piece as “exhilarating.”
Evans is the recipient of a Pollock–Krasner Foundation grant and a Ford Foundation Travel / Study grant and in 2004 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Academy of Art College, San Francisco. In 2006 Evans was a guest Lecturer at the University of Southern California’s Ryman Arts program.
Artist's Statement
My greatest ambition in teaching painting is to share with others the joy I experience in making art. Landscape painting has taught me to see the natural world around with more understanding and revealed dimensions of order and beauty that might have otherwise remained hidden beneath the surface.
I strive to help students see the landscape and paint it within two contexts: first, a deeper perceptual awareness of Nature’s structure and the phenomena of light and second, a greater knowledge of the traditions of landscape painting ( both “Western” and “Eastern”) in which they are working.
In the years since Impressionism plein air painting has generally been regarded as an end unto itself, with the capturing of direct color sensations considered to be the painter’s ultimate goal. Many artists, however, Monet included, have approached painting outdoors from Nature as a way of studying its forms and phenomena in order to provide themselves stepping stones to an individual vision and personal style.
Although I may give a painting demonstration for purposes of introducing some possibilities of technique, the primary goal of the Plein Air Workshop is to inspire each student to discover for themselves those aspects of nature and artistic expression best suited to their own individual vision, disposition and style.
See more of Christopher Evans' work at:
www.christopherevans.net
www.fischbachgallery.com
www.dfngallery.com
www.nyitlom.org
My greatest ambition in teaching painting is to share with others the joy I experience in making art. Landscape painting has taught me to see the natural world around with more understanding and revealed dimensions of order and beauty that might have otherwise remained hidden beneath the surface.
I strive to help students see the landscape and paint it within two contexts: first, a deeper perceptual awareness of Nature’s structure and the phenomena of light and second, a greater knowledge of the traditions of landscape painting ( both “Western” and “Eastern”) in which they are working.
In the years since Impressionism plein air painting has generally been regarded as an end unto itself, with the capturing of direct color sensations considered to be the painter’s ultimate goal. Many artists, however, Monet included, have approached painting outdoors from Nature as a way of studying its forms and phenomena in order to provide themselves stepping stones to an individual vision and personal style.
Although I may give a painting demonstration for purposes of introducing some possibilities of technique, the primary goal of the Plein Air Workshop is to inspire each student to discover for themselves those aspects of nature and artistic expression best suited to their own individual vision, disposition and style.
See more of Christopher Evans' work at:
www.christopherevans.net
www.fischbachgallery.com
www.dfngallery.com
www.nyitlom.org