Christopher Twilling

Born in Tucson, Arizona in 1964, Chris is the oldest of 13 children. Chris discovered his artistic talents at the age of 4, and used his art as a means of finding solitude. He was formally introduced to painting in high school, where the directives were to produce "realistic art."

After studying design in college, he began a twenty year career as a successful graphic designer, and became an art director for a well-known consumer brand, overseeing packaging and label design.

Chris survived a near-fatal automobile accident in 2008, which resulted in a traumatic brain injury. This was followed months later by a heart attack and stroke which left him partially paralyzed. These life-altering events profoundly impacted his perspective on life and the world around him.

After years of intensive physical and occupational therapy, and with inspiration from his three children, Chris resumed painting, though still paralyzed on his left side. Through his art, he captures simplicity in of the every day, with an undercurrent of depth and conflicting emotions.Chris has recently begun to explore abstraction, and At times, his abstract works are based on his own or found photographic images, which he manipulates digitally before transferring to canvas. Chris considers this first stage as "controlled abstraction," and the latter stage as the emotional component, in which the rational elements of the painting are dismantled.