Christopher Willey earned a graduate fellowship to pursue his MFA in New Genres at San Francisco Art Institute, and his BFA in Drawing at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.  During college he studied abroad at the Studio Art Center International in Florence, Italy, and at the Burren College of Art, County Clare, Ireland.

Willey has exhibited both nationally and internationally.  During the summer of 2012 Willey earned a grant from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee to participate in a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and was also invited to be a visiting artist at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

In 2011, he worked with In:Site on a project called On and Off Capitol which was a temporary public art project.  His national solo shows include "Beasts of Burden" at EFFJAY PROJEKTS in Sheboygan, WI, "Frontier" at the Prairie Street Gallery, Rockford IL, and "Community" at Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN.  Willey has been awarded the Mary Nohl Export Suitcase Grant to install work for "Contained" at Gallerie Sei-un-do, Zurich, Switzerland in 2006 and for "Frontier" in Rockford, IL in 2011.  Selected national group shows include: "To Here Knows When," at Untitled Gallery in Sausalito, California;  "BULK" with Tony Labat at Queens Nails Annex in San Francisco, California, and the 25th National Print Exhibition at the Silvermine Arts Guild in New Canaan, CT. 

His work can also be seen in New American Paintings, issue #65. Christopher is an Associate Lecturer at University of Wisconsin- Peck School of the Arts, an Instructor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and a Lecturer at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois.  He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.