Biography

What’s Chris up to now?
From his studios in Guernsey and Dorset, Chris continues to experiment with new techniques and mediums.

The airbrush is still in use but he now mainly paints using brush and oil paint rather than acrylics. He especially enjoys figure work, landscapes and 3D model design and making (by hand not computer!).

Except from Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss
Out July 21st UK & Sept 6th 2011 USA.

Chris was born in 1946 on Guernsey in the Channel Islands. His family had a long history on Guernsey, both Chris’ parents were public school teachers who worked in Devon, so he and his parents, and Chris’ younger brother, lived on the UK mainland in Devon during term time, returning to the island when possible during the holidays.

Chris sketching landscape on fine art print

Even before he started school, Chris was absorbing influences from the world around him, recalling “all the gutted houses in Exeter which had been bombed in the War.” During WWII the Channel Islands had been occupied by German troops from 1940 until 1945 (the only part of the British Isles to be invaded and occupied by German forces during the war). Hitler felt the islands were strategic to the invasion of Britain and ordered the construction of a series of fortifications around the coast of Guernsey and the larger island, Jersey.

Chris was born less than a year after the end of World War II, and these imposing structures made a lasting impression on him. He recalls , “The German fortifications in Guernsey were almost brand-new when I was exploring them from about the age of seven. I’d be quite scared because there’d be warning signs and barbed wire. They were crudely sealed and not too difficult to get into; there was a real excitement to worming my way into the elaborate bunker complexes and occasionally finding odd bits and pieces the Germans had left behind. It was quite an eerie experience as I’d be on my own and no one knew I was there. There was a curious depressive atmosphere in there. In some of the towers the wallpaper and decorations the Germans had put up to make them more homely were still there.”