Chris Vest Art

Chris Vest is a photo-pictorialist, in the tradition of Secessionists. This concept has been enlarged with the advancements in techniques made possible by the computer. Vest embraces the manipulation of images; he draws, paints, and etches upon them to the point that photography becomes more like painting. All of my images are offered as professionally printed giclee prints in editions limited to fifty numbered and signed pieces. Based in Dolores, Colorado, United States, Vest is much too critical of himself and work. He says he has a history of taking mediocre photos of birds. Each of his bird photographs are astonishing bearing in mind how difficult it was to capture on film or digitally the subjects in their natural settings. A bird dipper in the flowing creek or a bluebird perched on the broken barn window, for example, could not have come about easily each taking considerable knowledge, skill and patience. Through his impatience and crummy lens, he has been able to collect bird images from Alaska to Israel that are breathtakingly out-of-focus and dull. But he does have computer Photoshop skills, so he’s able to manipulate them until they become painterly. Vest has been a photographer and illustrator for more than 3 decades; unfortunately, all this time he had been working for employers who viewed art purely as commerce, so he decided that it’s time that he demonstrated to the world (and to himself) the nature of him own personal vision of making art to be something that inspires. He has achieved this vision through the framed Chris Vest art that are both inspiring and attractive.