Chris Semergieff was born in the Bronx in 1945. A product of public education, his undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned in the City University of New York. While he does paint figure compositions and still life, his focus has long been cityscapes and landscapes-the urban and the rural. Presently working in the Ossining, Peekskill and Hampton Bays vicinities, Chris Semergieff began looking at the diverse neighborhoods of Brooklyn in the late 70’s. Exploring that subject further, brought him to farms in Connecticut and seascapes in Long Island, later moving on to the Bronx and Yonkers. The format of neighborhoods and skylines have comprised his core interests throughout this time. The exchange of the specific foreground - the neighborhood - and the general background- the urban skyline - generates a narrative which has stimulated this artist over the decades. This focal point is the central enterprise of his career. 

To this artist, the urban site offers the viewer the opportunity to examine and consider the relationship between personal experiences and the larger formats created by society’s accumulated development. The questions of good or bad are proffered without prejudice. Nature, contained behind the fences of manufactured needs, is treated with the same concern and care as that of the open wildernesses of the nineteenth century painters. 

In his works, Semergieff contrives to elicit a light that fosters reflection. The color builds the light, inviting viewers to make this mental tour of their visual experiences. His sources for these works invoke Albert Cuyp, Edward Hopper, Rackstraw Downes and, more recently, Antonio Lopez Garcia. In the recent works, there has been an inverse exchange between man-made elements and nature, where nature now comprises a larger proportion of attention – perhaps suggesting the true scale of human endeavors to those of nature.