Chris Jehly sets out to capture secluded natural locations, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, or contained in his grandmother’s front yard. His plein-air watercolors vibrate and thrum with the energy of outdoor environments. He says, “My paintings aren’t necessarily a direct representation of the visual landscape, but rather incorporate the sounds of the environment, insects, my own body; the smells and changes in temperature and air pressure; the sense that I am a cell within a larger, living organism.”
Jehly was born in Santa Rosa, CA and is now based in Asheville, NC. He received his BA in printmaking at Sonoma State University in 2006 and MFA in printmaking from Columbia University in 2011. Chris has exhibited throughout California, New York, and Asheville as well as internationally in Amsterdam and China. He participated in the Bosch Young Talent Show in Hertogenbosch, Netherlands in 2011 and the Japan Foundation cultural exchange residency in 2015.