Biography

1960

Family moves westwards from Miami and settles in the San Francisco Bay Area. Chris’ youth during this time was often involved with family trips to San Francisco’s Chinatown district or hiking and trout fishing with his father, Jim, in the Sierra Mountains around Yosemite and northern California, as well as camping trips to the Big Sur coast to the south. Jazz recordings were a constant presence in the house during these years.

In September, Chris and his younger brother, Todd, along with their parents, Jim and Lois, migrate to Rabaul, Papua New Guinea after Chris’ father accepts a job with an Australian company to buy and sell cocoa and coffee from plantation owners, whilst his older twin sisters, Linda and Leslie, remain in Sydney. His mother took an office job at the Vulcanological Observatory on the outskirts of town. Chris wandered freely during these years exploring war relics in the jungle, hiking the many volcanoes in the area, sailing, skin diving and motorcycle riding through the jungle. His interest in music grew during this time and he taught himself to play the drums by listening to his parent’s jazz records as well as late 60’s, early 70’s rock recordings.

The start of the year saw the family return to Australia to live in Coffs Harbour on the NSW north coast after growing unrest in Papua New Guinea, but after the school year finishes they return to Newport. Much of the following period was spent discovering and experimenting with different forms of music where Chris played various instruments with other musicians.

Now living at Avalon on Sydney’s northern beaches, Chris abandons his music pursuits in favour of the visual arts and devotes the entire year to study and workshops at the Paddington based Australian Centre for Photography which, at the time, falls under the Directorship of Tamara Winikoph and where a parallel interest in both painting and photography was fostered. Toward the end of the year Chris also paints his first work in oil (Monument of a Benighted Era), a surrealist piece based on a Dalian landscape.

Chris begins a career in freelance travel photography, mostly working with the Avalon based award winning travel writer, Dawn Burns. The following years saw much travel and their work was widely published in numerous major magazines.

Chris veers away from the commercial aspect of magazine photography and focuses on the B&W medium as self expression. New work with the intention of exhibiting is produced but the year also marks a sensing frustration with Chris that the pursuit of the photographic image was limiting the expression of his personal visions. His interest in the 1940’s – 50’s German and American abstract painters begins to preoccupy his thoughts as did his interest in the philosophies of Proportion and Geometric Universalities as applied to music and architecture.

In September, Chris’ mother, Lois, then living in Marysville, VIC, passes away from cancer. Chris relocates to Melbourne, VIC, but within six months, returns to Sydney’s northern beaches. It was during this tumultuous time that Chris’ profound interest in Chinese Daoist philosophy began to fully emerge. Within the next two years the freer expressiveness of oil painting would totally supplant photography as his chosen medium and the series “Love and Other Crimes” would form.

Chris and Helen sell their house in Avalon and relocate to Byng, NSW, situated near Millthorpe between Bathurst and Orange in the Central Tablelands. On small acreage they build a house and painting studio and absorb themselves into the seasonal changes of living within the rural landscape.

In August, Chris mounts his first solo exhibition of paintings, “Resonance”, at Cudgegong Gallery in Gulgong, NSW with great success. Much of Chris’ interests and philosophies permeate the work. October sees a trip to China’s southern provinces and provides the profound experiences he seeks amongst the misted mountains of Huangshan, the limestone karsts of the Yulong River and the Miao and Naxi minority cultures of the southwest. He undertakes an intense personal workshop in Chinese brush and ink painting with a landscape painter who combines philosophy as well as technique and which sees the experience pave the way for new work and experimentation.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS

Cudgegong Gallery (Painting – permanent collection)
CustoMedia, Sydney NSW (Photography)
Allen, Allen & Hemsley, Sydney NSW (Photography)
State Bank of NSW, Sydney NSW (Photography)
Marylands Resort, Marysville VIC (Photography – Wirreanda Art Prize Acquisition)

Chris’ work, both painting and photography, has also been collected by numerous private collectors.