Christopher Dalton Powell was born in the Midwest, but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area at a young age. He studied photography at the San Francisco Art Institute; and continues to do photography, as well as sculpture and painting; but it is his self-taught work in collage that is currently gaining him recognition.

His precise, crisp and finely detailed ink-drawn lines give shape to the often playful pieces of old books and other ephemera that he cuts and pastes together to further define his images. Some retain a child-like element, using pieces of jigsaw puzzles and old paper dolls. Other work is mainly drawn on elements as diverse as the insides of book covers and old prints and paintings.

Powell has said: "As a kid I always had a make believe story running in my head all the time, now it's being played out as an adult."

Powell's selection of tools is of utmost importance. His choice of art materials become an integral part of "the story of the work, a brick to build with, like the little collage pieces and the old foxed paper." Powell’s work has been shown on both the east and west coasts of the United States, and in Paris, France.

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