Christopher Slaymaker is potent contemporary painter. His work contains strong gestural forms combined with abstract dream-space, rendered with rich dynamic brushwork. Slaymaker’s approach to his subjects is gentle and focused. The figures that star in Slaymaker’s autobiographical paintings exhibit a blooming self-awareness and a deep delight. Friends, favorite dogs, and the artist himself all play a role in the story of spiritual searching in his paintings.Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1984 to artist parents, Christopher was an avid drawer by age 4 and exhibited artistic talent in visual arts throughout primary school. He grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He was a very active youth participating in many sports including, baseball, skateboarding, bicycling, cross-country, track and captain of his high school wrestling team. Slaymaker received The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship for drawing in 2006, then attended Virginia Commonwealth University for two years and finished his Undergraduate studies with BA from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in 2011. Christopher received his MFA from Laguna College of Art + Design in 2013, where he mentored with painter Kent Williams.