Christopher Volpe
Painter

updated 07.17.08

Biography:
Christopher Volpe began his creative and professional life as a writer and teacher. After several years researching and writing about American art and teaching art history at Chester College of New England, Volpe began painting his own canvases.

Volpe initially moved to New England to do graduate work in poetry, and a similar poetic sensibility underlies his visual art. Balancing naturalism and abstraction, he creates paintings that are loose, gestural, and dreamlike without losing touch with either reality or emotion.

Some of his landscapes are drawn from memory, some are created plain air, and others are inspired by imaginative literature. Influences include 19th century Tonalist and Barbizon painters as well as 20th century abstract expressionism.

Critics have noted his work's "delicate balance between forms and light at the edge of dawns and dusks" and his ability to find "eloquent, painterly ways to bring a canvas to that point in time."

As an emerging artist, Volpe is committed to expanding his creative and professional potential and spends an increasing amount of time on his painting.