Artist Bio
Christopher Mooney is known as a professional artist in Portland, OR for his urban landmarks, primarily bridges, industrial sites, and working heroes, and is currently creating commissioned portraits. Mooney hikes around the bridges of Portland and other cities with his camera and steps off the sidewalks to get a different perspective of the city and its bridges. He creates his large-scale oils from photo references. Born and raised in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, surrounded by an artistic family of writers, musicians, and architects amidst the vast New York art scene, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Parsons School of Design.
Currently influenced by Edward Hopper’s narratives and landscape paintings of New England, Arthur Dove’s modern and abstract works, and Hudson River School artist John Frederick Kensett’s “luminism” in his American landscape paintings. Recently, Mr. Mooney has moved from painting urban landscapes into the world of portraiture, figurative art, and modern or contemporary realism. Studying the human form, he has been drawn to investigate cognitive and developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, human ethology, and evolution. What is now Contemporary Realism or modern realism, Mr. Mooney, observing deeper inspiration comes from Daniel Greene’s lonely women in subway stations, Nelson Shanks’ Salome, Steve Hanks’ figurative of emotional or gathering thoughts, and Michael Parks’ fantasy art and magic realism. Christopher Mooney is currently a member of the Oil Painters of America, International Guild of Realism, National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, American Artist Professional League Inc., Society of Washington Artists, and Northwest Oil Painters Guild.