Today we’d like to introduce you to Aleah Chapin
Hi Aleah, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
How do we tell the stories of our lives? Which narrative threads do we follow? It’s like choosing a river. They all lead to the sea. I could share how I would wake up at 4am when I was very young, sit at my little art table drawing, sculpting, making anything, listening to books on tape. And how I never stopped, I just don’t wake up quite so early anymore. I could share about all the support and help I’ve had along the way that made it possible for me to be an artist full time. But the story I want to tell here is how art has helped me through some of the most heartbreaking chapters of my life, and one in particular.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One year ago, a close childhood friend of mine lost her partner to suicide. A month later, that friend took her own life. Between the shock, tears, frantic reassurances between friends that there will be no more suicides, and all the logistical things that need to get done when something like this happens, I also went to the studio. Two works on paper came from this and led to a larger body of work. One, titled The Burning, was raw, violent, and grief-drenched. The second, The Greater Wings, was quieter, darker and more settled.
Making this work, and the paintings that followed, helped me process what happened. I don’t know why this is, except that putting pigment on a surface externalizes the complex knots of thought and feeling so they don’t slosh around in my gut. It allows them to be and gives them form, which lessens their destructive power. It creates a nutrient rich soil where seeds for a better day can grow.
My friend was an artist too. After her partner died, her grief was bigger than I can comprehend. One afternoon when it was particularly strong and angry, I set up a giant roll of paper in her studio with paints and charcoal. She shut the door and raged in there for an hour. When I came back, 6 feet of it was covered in images and her hands were black, red and blue with pigment. She told me what it all meant and said she wanted to burn it. I promised her we would do that. A few days later, she took her own life.
Before my friends and I went to the beach of our island home to set fire to this pain, hers, ours, we painted on the last 6 feet of paper. It was a cathartic experience none of us ever imagined or wanted to do for a friend we’d known for 35 years.
Because somehow, ridiculously, beautifully, life continues on, the work I made during this past year has come to completion as a solo exhibition titled Night Bloom, at Simard Bilodeau Contemporary in Los Angeles. It opened on January 25th, less than 2 weeks after this city I recently began to call home started burning.
This story that began with fire, ended with fire, if we can call it an ending. And just as fires can be the most destructive force, they also clear the way for new things to grow, it just depends on how the story is told. It’s a trope, the phoenix rising from the ashes, but it’s true if we allow it to be. We can’t stop people from dying or fires from burning, and the pain and loss is and always will be real, but we can choose what we do when these horrible things happen. The process of painting, burning and painting again through this experience, has helped me realize my own resilience, showed me the importance of life and friendship and storytelling in all its forms. As the world literally and metaphorically burns around us, this understanding is something I will carry with me for whatever lies ahead.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Aleah Chapin (b. 1986 Whidbey Island, WA) is a painter whose direct portrayals of the human form have expanded the conversation around western culture’s representations of the body in art. Described by Eric Fischl as “the best and most disturbing painter of flesh alive today,” she has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world, including Flowers Gallery (New York, London, Hong Kong), the Belvedere Museum (Vienna), the National Portrait Gallery (London) and Oceanside Museum (California). Chapin has attended residencies at the Leipzig International Art Program (Germany) and MacDowell (United States). She is a recipient of the Willard L. Metcalf Promising Young Painters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (Canada), a Postgraduate Fellowship from the New York Academy of Art, and won the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (London) in 2012. She holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art (New York) and a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle). Chapin’s work has been published extensively, including New American Paintings, Juxtapoz, Art Maze Magazine, London Sunday Times and the Seattle Times, among others. She is also a subject in the BBC documentary titled “Portrait of an Artist”. Aleah Chapin lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aleahchapin.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleah_chapin/?hl=en
- Other: https://vimeo.com/619429655
Image Credits
The only one that needs credit is the personal photo: Chad Unger. His name is in the file name of that image.
