Chris Kandis was 21 years old when he won his first art award. Within 12 months he was travelling and working as an artist in Europe, rounding out his studies after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from RMIT. The experience confirmed painting as a profession for Chris who was born in Melbourne in 1966. He drew attention to his talent while a teenager, selling paintings from his father's greengrocery shop. Leonard Long encouraged Chris by taking him on annual painting camps from the age of 14. Chris has been described as approaching the Australian landscape with a romantic vision of images by painters from the 19th Century, but is both Impressionist and Realist and does not want to be seen as a purely traditional artist.