Chris Hammerlein’s dynamic graphite and ink drawings reveal a mastery of line and narrative. He seamlessly weaves together complex emotional states and elaborate stories in a dense intermingling of wildlife, wilderness, and humanity. The lines that create human forms flow into those of foliage, water, and underbrush in dreamlike landscapes that reside neither in the past nor in the present. References to ancient myths that deal with eternal human dramas – love, despair, the battle of the sexes, and war – mix modern worldliness with timeless concerns. The dramas are housed in spatially complex psychological environments, treating savagery and civilization with empathy, elegance, and humor. Sometimes graphic, but always romantic, these images transport the viewer to different worlds through their accessible visual and literary allusions. His work contains echoes of Hokusai, Hans Baldung Grien, and Samuel Palmer, while alluding to the prose of Euripides, Boethius, and Heinrich Heine.