Chris Gwaltney was born in Van Nuys, California. Having sketched from an early age, he began painting full time at the insistence of an artist friend after an injury restricted him to crutches for a year and a half at the age of 23. Soon after he took 1st prize at the Costa Mesa Art League and later was juried into the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. Deciding to pursue a professional career in art he enrolled at the University California State Fullerton where he received his Bachelors of Art in 1984 and consecutively was awarded his Master of Fine Arts in 1986 and teaching credentials in 1987. While preparing for his graduate show, he was spotted by gallerist, Diane Nelson who that same year gave him his first solo exhibition. Over the next 23 years Gwaltney has been a feature artist with Diane Nelson Fine Art (1986-1991), Peter Blake Gallery (1993-present), Robert Green Gallery (1997-present) and Julie Nester Gallery (2008-present).

Gwaltney's influences hail strongly from the San Francisco figurative group and include both sculptors and painters such as Nathan Olivera, Manual Neri, Stephen de Stabler, Joan Brown and Richard Diebenkorn. In terms of mark-making, he looks to Jean Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, William de Kooning and Joan Mitchell.

For Gwaltney, the importance of the figure is not in the pure representation but the expression of the gesture. Often a gesture can say more than words by depicting the beauty of resilience to teenage awkwardness even the inner strength of

a woman. This gesture acts as a window into the human condition. His figures attempt to capture the fullness of the human experience. All his source materials emanate from his family as he believes these relationships are the most honest expression in his life.

Gwaltney's process is one of construction and then deconstructing leading to multi-layered meanings. For him, each painting poses an argument and he finds the evidence that leads to the end just as pivotal as the completed work. He incorporates poetry from W.S. Merwin, Walt Whitman and Billy Collins as another element. As poetry represents the essence of an emotion, in contrast, Gwaltney finds the exploration of many sensibilities through paint just as important. He allows for the underlying sketches and the decision process to come through. In the artwork the argument is a document of time well spent.

His works appear in numerous public collections such as Rauxa Direct, Irvine, California, the Irvine Company, Irvine, California, Finecon, Los Angeles, California, Forms Engineering Company, La Palma, California, California, Engle and Murphy Design, Long Beach, California, Quiksilver, Huntington Beach, California, Wallace Computers, Chicago, Illinois and Adobe Systems, San Francisco, California.

Gwaltney currently resides in southern California with his wife Jill and two children.