The artist Kris Haas is a native Portland Oregonian with much the same spirit of the environment she lives in, free, daring and original. “The act of creation something truly original, that is what I do.”

She started her artistic path at the age of five by coloring, building and exploring the world around her with the tools that where accessible in her environment. She always liked a challenge even at an early age when she was found at the very top of a 40 foot fir tree and her mother could not believe her eyes since the first branch to climb was at least a couple of feet above her reach.

This kind of spirit is what helped her to propel forward in her career as an artist taking risks and accepting challenges with always finding a way to create the message she is trying to convey from her own journey as an artist and human being.

In Ashland Oregon she began creating her colored pencil paintings with a unique technique called Pigmented Chiaroscuro, literally "colored from within." These pieces hold an amazing amount of detail and color creating a world that will take you to places of imagination you never expected. This technique helped her to create pieces with graphite pencil that have life like detail that makes you think you are looking at a photo. By the late 90’s she had entered several colored pencil competitions gaining some exhibition experience as well as recognition.

Never to be satisfied with one form of artistic expression in the late 1990's she started drawing larger pieces with pastels and then turned to oil painting. She took a couple of classes on oil painting at PNCA helping her to learn the fundamentals of working with oil. With that same adventurous spirit she immersed herself in painting with oil on canvas, wood and occasionally paper. She finds it very satisfying to work with the color richness of oil while using the slow drying abilities of the medium to her advantage. In doing so she has created another unique technique called Structured Chaos. This is done in her work by manipulating the different textures and colors by applying them in such a vivid stark way that it draws the viewer in to the world of converging energies inside different dimensions.

Kris Haas has found complete satisfaction in creating her art and the many opportunities to exhibit her work. “It always gives me such great pleasure knowing the positive beautiful experience I am able to give people when they purchase one of my pieces and it becomes part of there home.” Ms. Haas is always looking forward to her continued growth as an artist and all the many wonderful surprises it brings.