Chris N Wood in his studio, deftly smudging a charcoal life drawing
photo courtesy of Debby Dodsworth
Chris N Wood is a British painter working from studios in Portsmouth and Suffolk. His work explores the relationship between place, memory and the passage of time through sustained observation of the natural world. Whether painting the sea, estuaries, gardens or the human figure, his practice is rooted in close looking and an enduring fascination with light, weather and seasonal change.
Born in Suffolk, Chris studied at Ipswich School of Art before continuing his education at Wimbledon School of Art. Drawing remains central to his practice, informing paintings that balance direct observation with memory and experience. Rather than simply recording a place, his work seeks to convey its atmosphere, structure and the subtle changes that occur over time.
Recent work has centred on three interconnected bodies of work. Time and Tide reflects a lifetime of sailing and explores the changing light and rhythms of the Solent, Chichester Harbour and the estuaries of Suffolk and Essex. The Garden Paintings are an ongoing record of seasonal change observed over several years, while The Weather Project documents the ever-changing skies above Portsmouth through drawing, photography and painting. Together these projects explore the quiet transformations that shape our experience of the landscape and reveal the extraordinary within the familiar.
Working primarily in oil and watercolour, Chris allows the process of making to remain visible within the finished painting, preserving something of the search, discovery and response that gave rise to the work.
Chris is based at ArtSpace Portsmouth and exhibits regularly in the south of England. His paintings and linocuts are held in private collections throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and South Africa.
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