"Cherry Blossom Lane" Painting

I see the world in black and white. How it is and how it should be. And I express this view in vivid colors—in a post-impressionist or expressionist style. The good, the bad. The sweet and bittersweet. Spring and fall. Day and night. Like Dutch post-impressionist Vincent van Gogh, I was inspired by my brother Scott who encouraged me to chase my dream like Theo did for Vincent. I re-launched Chris Kappmeier Studio to make my dream a reality. Currently, I paint out of my kitchen, crammed with canvases where pots and pans should be. Painting is my meal ticket. While I’ve sold paintings from a small boutique gallery frame shop for the past 15 years, I do not have a benefactor like van Gogh to fund actual studio space that can store and display my large portfolio and canvases. I studied at Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art. A life altering apprenticeship excursion to Siracusa, Sicily (where mathematician Archimedes was born) introduced color, perspective, symmetry, shapes, and proportion to my world as I painted landscapes, orange groves, olive trees, Mt. Etna, and still life from ancient land along the Ionian Sea coast. Sicily opened my eyes and eliminated all my blind spots (restraint, perfection, apprehension, commercialism)—allowing me to paint freely. There, I found my calling.