Christopher (Chris) T. Fisher delves into the diachronic connections between people and their idealized ritual landscapes through a range of mediums, including oil on canvas and board, hammered tin and metal leaf, and digital reconstructions. Drawing from over thirty years of firsthand scientific investigation, he engages with ancient Mesoamerican forms—motifs, symbols, architectural elements, and agricultural features—that reflect his deep exploration of these cultures. While his work is grounded in the past, Fisher also integrates modernist painting, abstraction, color theory, and contemporary thought, creating a fusion of ancient and modern sensibilities.
Fisher’s understanding of landscape extends beyond the traditional, seeing it as a holistic unit of human occupation encompassing both people and the environments they create. In this view, landscape becomes a manifestation of experience and perception, a system that can be decoded to better understand human behavior. Through his compositions, Fisher uses natural and human forms as shorthand for identifying the essential elements of ancient environments, offering a visual language that speaks to both history and experience. His color palette draws from ancient artifacts, yet is tempered by modernist interpretations of Mesoamerica, influenced by the work of figures such as Diego Rivera, Dr. Atl, Luis Barragán, Mathias Goeritz, and Josef Albers. In doing so, Fisher blurs the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘science,’ seeking deeper meanings within these intersectional realms.
Christopher (Chris) T. Fisher, PhD., is a National Geographic Explorer, TED speaker, Professor of Anthropology (Archaeology) at Colorado State University, and director of the non-profit Earth Archive. Fisher has directed archaeological projects at sites throughout Mexico, Honduras, and Europe. He is best known for his pioneering use of airborne LiDAR to document unknown cultures and cities throughout greater Mesoamerica including the city of the Jaguar, Honduras (Lost City of the Monkey God), and the ancient Purépecha capital of Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico. He has published over a hundred scientific articles in places like Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). His work is supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, National Geographic, and private donations. His TED talk, “Let's scan the whole planet with LiDAR” has been viewed by almost 2 million people. Fisher’s father was a landscape painter and growing up the family survived by manufacturing ‘slip cast’ ceramics. He estimates that he poured, painted, and fired several thousand birds, teddy bears, and other creatures over the course of his childhood.
