Chris Parsons’ interest in art bloomed when he was a child, furthered by his love for comics and books, and continued into his later years, when he decided to study graphic design. Luckily, the courses he took were broad and also covered other interests of his: photography, painting, and illustration. After a flurry of jobs that failed to utilize his artistic skill, Parsons opened his own business at the St. Nicholas market in Bristol; Parsons showed his landscape paintings and was commissioned for portraits and graphic design projects, but felt that he should take his art in a different direction. He approached an established art gallery about representation and through them began to sell his unique work.

Parsons’ landscapes focus on spectacular skyscapes, layering glazes of oil paint just as masters like Rembrandt once did to create luminous compositions with a variety of colors, sometimes mixed right on the canvas. These incredible feats of contrast and color are inspired by his childhood, spent gazing up at the ever-changing sky as he ran through nearby fields. Parsons notes that the sky in these landscapes, made tranquil and bright by Parsons’ brush or depicted dark and stormy, convey a sense of escapism for him and capture the many moods of the English countryside, one of his great loves.