Chrysanthi Fairchild Werner’s artistic involvement began early. While attending James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, she painted scenery for the class Sing theatrical for several years, created art for the literary magazine, the Madisonian, and was elected Class Artist of her senior class of over 1200 students.  Afterwards, Chrysanthi attended Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, completing a five-year course in Architecture that included a foundation year in Art. During her nearly nineteen years in Brazil, Chrysanthi was a primary school teacher but was also able to teach fundamental art techniques as well as an Art History class to her students at the British School in Rio de Janeiro.

It was in Brazil where Chrysanthi learned about batik, a painting with wax technique that she rediscovered on Nantucket in a series of flower paintings.

She has enjoyed working on large scale pieces, diptychs and triptychs, harking back to her scenery design days, contrasting the spontaneous drawing quality implicit in wax drawing combined with the unexpected color combinations from the additive dying process of traditional batik painting.

During her twenty years as a classroom teacher at the United Nations School in New York City, Chrysanthi continued to teach her students about art, using art in Math presentations, Science Fair projects, as well as Humanities exhibitions to combine academic studies with artistic methodologies.

Last winter, Chrysanthi spent several months in Florida and created a series of collages based on sunsets. These color studies, made of recycled magazine illustrations, have allowed her to explore the technique of “torn edge” to create depth and textural richness. Chrysanthi is fascinated with the ever-changing color combinations of sea and sky and has continued this work in Nantucket as well.