374 words with Chris cuyLer

Born and raised in Upstate New York, I started drawing when I was four years old, just doodling and being interested in drawing all the time. I would say I always considered myself to be an artist, especially since I have bounced back and forth between art and acting in my earlier years.

During high school, I was involved in acting and dance. I attended the State University of New York at Binghamton, where I pursued a liberal arts program focusing on drawing, graphic design, and the theatre.

I am a self-taught painter—I have never taken a class—yet I have a graphics and drawing background. I feel having not been trained as a painter, but growing up in a household with a fine artist, my mother, has afforded me the ability to experiment and find my own path to what I want to express at any given moment. I paint in many different styles, but lean heavily toward abstract expressionism.

My current focus is on faces. I’ve been leaning toward a pop art style I created years ago and am still expanding as I paint more and entertain a more graphic approach. I’ve also been playing around with a more calmed-down palette.

In the early ‘90s, I was living in Seattle for a bit and a friend asked me to join him at an open studio and gave me some paints and an art board to play around with. I found it to be very freeing. So, I went back a couple of times and decided to invest in my own paints and play around in my tiny apartment. And, it was when I did my first painting on a real stretched canvas, that I realized this is what I have to do. A defining moment for sure.

Movement, color, music, good wine, other abstract works, my mother’s spirit, and how I am feeling at that moment influence and inspire me to start a new piece. When it comes to painting, I keep myself open to whatever my gut is telling me and let the piece happen organically. I continue to choose to be self-taught mostly because it’s my journey and I don’t seek any interference in that matter. I do me.