Chris Apel was born in Cambridge Massachusetts, and graduated from Rockford College with a BFA. An award-winning artist, she studied with Danni Dawson, the internationally known portrait and still life artist and Robert Liberace, the acclaimed classical figure and portrait painter.

While she has painted Italian scenes for over 20 years, for the past five years she had devoted her time to capturing the beauty of Ravello on canvas. Two years ago, she created a website (www.discoveringravello.com) to showcase her paintings of Ravello.

When asked why she finds Ravello so artistically inspiring, she says: “It’s everything. The breathtaking views of the Mediterranean coastline. The villas. The manicured gardens. The mix of Romaneque, Gothic and Moorish architecture. The flowers. The grottoes. With its colors, contrast, texture, subject matter, and perspective, Ravello is an artist’s dream: a marvelous interplay of natural and man-made beauty, light and shadow, just waiting to be caught on canvas.”