Chris Brandell’s work grows out of a deep personal engagement with the natural world. Her palette, textured surfaces, and marks are shaped by the objects she gathers near her studio—shells, driftwood, broken concrete, bits of wire, and other fragments that carry the island’s quiet pulse.
Poetry, music, and words also play an important role in her work. She translates these tactile and emotional references into abstract paintings rendered in oil and mixed media.
Guided by intuition rather than planning, her compositions embrace a direct physical language where gesture, movement, and the presence of paint remain visible.
Brandell works from her studio in Marco Island, Florida. A full-time artist since 2019, her work is held in private and corporate collections, including Southern Methodist University, Pi Beta Phi (Texas), and The Silva and The Edge (Maryland).
I never know where intuition will take me or what each painting will become. I often begin with a drawing; sometimes it remains the focus, and sometimes it disappears into the groundwork for something new. At its core, my work is an exploration of love—spiritual, romantic, platonic, and the ongoing practice of self-love. I believe that Divine perfection, the purest form of love, exists within everything.
My process is guided by listening rather than planning. Marks arrive directly with gesture, movement, and the physical presence of paint remaining visible rather than dissolving. These moments introduce a different kind of clarity, one that exists alongside uncertainty. The work holds both stillness and movement, softness and structure, and the known and the not yet understood.
I return continually to a simple idea: do what you love and forget the rest. Wherever the work leads, it comes back to love. When a painting carries that energy, I know the work is complete.
ARTIST STATEMENT
SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS
EXHIBITIONS
2026: Spring Fling (5 Artists), Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, Florida
2025: Season Opening Exhibition, Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, Florida
2024: Season Opening Exhibition, Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, Florida
2022: Sightseeing (3 Artists), Huff Harrington Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia
2022: Right Here All Along (2 Artists), Palette Home, Richmond, Virginia
2022: Art2Life International Juried Art Exhibition, curated by Jack Fischer
2022: The Architecture of Healing (4 Artists), Sozo Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina
2021: Found Objects (Solo), Palette Home, Richmond, Virginia
2021: The Words (Solo), The Athenaeum, Alexandria, Virginia
2020: Perspective & Prose (4 Artists), Sozo Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina
PRESS
— Gulfshore Life Home (full feature)
— Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles (artwork featured)
— The Washington Post (The Words review)
COLLECTIONS
— Southern Methodist University, Pi Beta Phi, Dallas, Texas
— The Silva (Adams Morgan), Washington, DC.
— The Edge, Bethesda, Maryland
— Ninotch, An Urban Retreat, Tysons Corner, Virginia
— The Asbury, Charlotte, North Carolina
REPRESENTATION
— Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, Florida
— Huff Harrington Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia
— Galerie Odette (earlier works) Birmingham, Alabama