After graduating from the University of Utah, Chris moved to New York and worked as an illustrator for magazines, book covers and children's books, working for The New York Times, Random House, Harper Collins and other companies. 

In 2000 he moved back West, shifted his focus to fine art painting, and has since developed his current style which he calls Magical Realism.

"My ideas mostly come from sitting down with my sketchbook and drawing from my imagination, which is nourished by nature, reading, and looking at the works of Old Master and contemporary artists.  Most of my paintings have characters and some kind of implied narrative.  I see each painting as a captured moment, and like an old surreal photograph discovered in a drawer, where one is unsure of what happened before or what will happen next.  I find this particular moment captured in an image very appealing.”  Chris includes symbols and themes that have meaning for him in his work,  and he encourages viewers to interpret these in their own personal way.

Each painting begins with a small thumbnail sketch.  “I enlarge this sketch and make a series of refinements on tracing paper.  I then transfer the refined drawing to the painting surface and begin painting in acrylic, building up layers of paint using the techniques of Old European Masters, whose paintings are a constant source of inspiration for me.”