Christopher Payne is an illustrator, designer, and printmaker who grew up on the outskirts of California’s Mojave Desert. Whether in ink, watercolor, screen printing, or other practices, his work focuses on the natural world during a time when its ecosystems are constantly under attack and changing drastically. Acknowledging fate with grace, his work cultivates beauty out of darkness and stresses the importance of balance. Payne got his start by being actively involved in the underground music scene, and in 2004, he founded Folktale Records, a record label that specialized in limited edition, hand-packaged releases on a variety of formats, which he ran for thirteen years. In 2011, he co-founded Fine Print Press and is editor-in-chief of its imprint Fine Print, an independent literary and visual arts journal. In 2021, he co-created Orb.church, a website that crafts a poem based on your natal chart and pairs it with illustrations. He has done book design and illustrative work for Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, Dancing Girl Press, Tilted House, Ghost Peach Press and Birdcoat Quarterly. His artwork has appeared in the television shows Silicon Valley (HBO) and Loosely Exactly Nicole (MTV / Facebook Watch), and has been shown in galleries throughout the United States and abroad. He currently resides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.