Chris Leib

I am often overwhelmed with things going on around me, with the endless static of this world. When something draws my attention it is usually because it is out of place. it has slowed down or is lost.

I wonder how it got there, why it has stopped moving, stopped keeping pace with everything else. My imagination starts to fill in the story. That's when I know something has really moved me and that's when I want to paint it.

The painting methods I use are slow and an intensely absorbing process, allowing me a long interaction with my subject. Success comes when observation gives way to feeling, when the subject seems so overpowering that it tells me how to feel it, how to convey its story. Then a level of empathy occurs and the work has meaning to me.