One of Chris Kappmeier tattoos, in bold ink sprawled across his neck, sums him up. It reads, "Art Life." On a sunny, cold day he stands in overalls mixing paint and globbing color on a canvas in his kitchen. Within four hours the painting of his pot rack will be added to the hundreds that are stacked everywhere in his Second Avenue apartment.

If you’re in the right place at the right time, you can see him. He may have his easel set up at a street corner on Ridge Road, painting a building that catches his fancy. He may be right in the middle of the deepest bowels of the marshes in the Meadowlands because he saw a pretty flock of birds nesting near a beautiful wildflower arrangement. Although his local landscapes are gaining notoriety at the Flyway Gallery, he’s been catching the eye of museums, galleries and art lovers for years now. He’s been featured in over 40 galleries and shows since making a go of his work in 1988.

Forty-three of his paintings are currently on display at the Flyway Gallery at the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission, a perfect setting for the models that inspire him so much, his surroundings.

Kappmeier is so immersed in his passion that it’s not a hobby, it’s a job – a tough gig in the rough and tumble world of working just to get by. But he manages. Born in North Bergen, he has lived in four different towns before settling down in Lyndhurst 10 years ago, all of which have had some influence on the canvases he carries around like a drifter, setting up his studio wherever he pleases.

"I paint from the inside out. I go out and I see something that catches me, I’ll paint it," he said. "I just get things in my head and they stick. I like old buildings, I like old architecture, so I may pass something one day, set up and go to work on it. That’s why I like Hoboken and there are a lot of buildings in Lyndhurst that I’ve done."

Hoboken was where he got his start. "It’s like a mini New York now, but so historic still," he said. "I’d be painting on a street corner and I would just have people come up to me and ask if they could purchase work and even was approached by the Hoboken Museum. They said we like that, if you can get us 10 pieces we can feature you. I said give me 10 days."

His methods are as unconventional as his appearance. Globbing massive layers onto the canvas and including even the ugliest of details in every landscape, his paintings don’t fit many conventional artists’ tastes. His tastes are derivative of his idols, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh. Take a snapshot of the Meadowlands for instance, his work shows the beautiful marshes and flora, but he does not omit a swath of power lines running through it. "I don’t care, if I’m going to paint everything, I’m going to include every detail, no matter how ugly because that’s what it is," he said.

Before trying art, he took advertising. He knew it wasn’t for him when he got his first assignment to do a mock cookbook.

"It was typical stupid thinking of a professor that didn’t want anyone to think outside the box," said Kappmeier. "So I did a cannibal cookbook with skulls and eyes with forks in them. The teacher said what is this? I said I could do another French cookbook like everyone else, but you wouldn’t remember that."

After some time he found his niche as a fine arts major at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. He did his apprenticeship painting the countryside in Syracusa, Italy.

He sells his work for $500 to $5,000 and says he’s usually able to live comfortably with that. He has even attracted some well known buyers, one being actor Joe Pantoliano (Ralphie Cifaretto on the Sopranos), who saw some pieces and purchased four.

Kappmeier said his ultimate goal is to be in the Metropolitan Museum (the Met), and may well be on his way. The Artists’ Viewing Program at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in Manhattan sent him a letter last August, acknowledging that staff there had viewed his pieces. But for now, he said although that is his ultimate longtime goal, he currently is living out his dream.

"The dream right now is this," said Kappmeier. "I don’t need all the fancy things in life, I just need my oils, paint, brushes and canvas. People work to buy all these fancy things, never use them and then die to leave them behind, most gets thrown own. When I die, I’ll have my paintings to leave behind."