Chris Willey is a Professor of Art at the University of Central Missouri. She
has a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska and and MFA in
Illustration from Syracuse University.
She says of her work, “Painting outside in nature, painting the landscape
-- it awakens my spirit. It makes me notice things. Painting the landscape
continually offers me new information about the planet. There are so many
questions – what does land do? What do skies do? What does water do?
How do they interact? What does this day feel like? How do I impact it?
And ultimately, it makes me ask deeper questions about everything. Paying
attention to the world outside of myself connects me to my best self.
In contemporary art there always seems to be the quest for the new original
idea or concept. Artists in this point in history are often pushed in the
direction of the “conceptual” because art critics like to latch on to that, and
art students are often studying art theory from professors who put great stock
in the conceptual and discount the narrative. But we really all have the same
basic questions, and we find our answers in our own unique ways. I’ve made
a conscious choice to make paintings for me, not some other, unknown
audience. Painting is my meditation, my journal, my exploration, and my
peace of mind.
There have been many landscape painters before me, and many will follow,
but it does not negate my own quest to discover and participate in the world
around me, and in this way, each piece of my art is an original concept that
comes from my own journey.”
