Christopher Stephens

Artist Bio

“I paint the Shenandoah Valley landscape from life using oils on wood or canvas. I strive for realism while using color to convey the excitement I feel being with nature. My wide, painted, illusionistic inner frames are designed to call attention to the flatness of the painted surfaces on which the illusion of depth has been portrayed.”

Christopher Stephens is an artist currently living and working in Front Royal, a town in northwestern Virginia. In Front Royal, the North and South forks of the Shenandoah River come together and one finds the northern terminus of the Skyline Drive.  Although he has worked in clay, plaster and wood sculpture, handmade paper and mixed media, Stephens primary activity is painting oil landscapes. He paints almost exclusively from life, in all types of weather.  His aim is to know and to capture the color of light and he returns to the same sites over and over, to better see and paint changing light, atmosphere, and seasons.  He received his education at UNC Greensboro and James Madison University in Virginia.  Stephens has been exhibiting up and down the east coast sine the mid 1980’s and is the recipient of the Lewis Foundation Grant and the Virginia Commission for the Arts Grant.  Since 1997 he has been an instructor at James Madison University teaching Art in General Culture, an art appreciation lecture course, Drawing I and II and 3-D Design.