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A Profile Of Aleah Chapin

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Aleah Chapin as well as "Auntie"
Winner of the BP Portrait Award 2012
© Aleah Chapin
Last calendar week I was delighted to encounter Aleah Chapin - the kickoff American woman individual creative individual to win the BP Portrait Award.

She's likewise i of the youngest artists e'er to win this really prestigious portrait prize which was hotly contested this twelvemonth past times 2,187 artists from 74 countries.  (see Aleah Chapin wins £25,000 BP Portrait Award 2012)

I interviewed her the twenty-four lx minutes catamenia earlier the 2012 BP Portrait Exhibition opened at the National Portrait Gallery opened to the public.

I was likewise tickled pinkish to notice out that Aleah had already sent my weblog shipping well-nigh the shortlist - inwards which I predicted she would win the First Prize to all her relatives! 


It likewise made for a really friendly interview - as well as I've made a celluloid of excerpts as well as uploaded it to YouTube.


At the halt of this post you tin listen from Aleah herself in my video of highlights from my interview amongst her.

You tin consider Aleah on the correct amongst her portrait of "Auntie".

About Aleah Chapin

First a piffling fleck well-nigh her background.  Aleah grew upward on an isle due north of Seattle but is immediately based inwards Brooklyn, New York. She lists her dwelling family town every bit beingness Langley, Washington which is on Whidbey Island.

She has been ikon since she was a child.

In 2009 she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Cornish College of the Arts which boasts it is i of the exceed visual arts as well as performing arts colleges inwards the USA.

Since graduating from Cornish, she has attended a residency at the New York Academy of Art amongst an MFA - as well as late learned that she'sbeen awarded a postgraduate fellowship with the NYAA which volition furnish her amongst a studio, a stipend as well as some didactics sense - summation a demonstrate at the end.

As Aleah pose it to me "Everything has happened really fast inwards the terminal ii months!  It's all truly coming together"


Aleah Chapin - Winner of the BP Portrait Award 2012
(left to right: Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery,
Bob Dudley, CEO of BP, Aleah Chapin as well as Sir Michael Parkinson)
all photos copyright Katherine Tyrrell
If you're living or visiting New York y'all tin consider her artwork at The Flowers Gallery in New York which is hosting the New York Academy of Art's Summer Exhibition which opened on Fri as well as continues until July xviii 2012.

The Portrait as well as the Aunties Project

Aleah has been ikon nudes for some time.  Latterly she has developed a projection called The Aunties Project.

These are all paintings of older women inwards the nude.  What's really particular is that they are all women that Aleah has known all her life.
The subjects inwards Aleah's electrical current serial are women that she has known since she was born. Titled "The Aunties Project", this move “examines my personal history through the people who convey shaped it. On our bodies is left a map of our journeying through life. The procedure of ikon these women allowed me a glimpse of that journeying as well as brought me into the introduce instant of our shared history.”
Aleah Chapin website
The adult woman who is the dependent area of her prizewinning portrait "Auntie" is a friend of her Mother's as well as was truly inwards the room when Aleah was born.  They convey known each other for all Aleah's life.  At the halt of the video (see below) Aleah talks a piffling fleck well-nigh this adult woman as well as it's really evident that she has a really particular regard for this woman.

For me as well as others, this sense of a human relationship as well as the humanity of the private comes through very strongly in her painting.

The other affair which really much appealed to me well-nigh her ikon is that Aleah is hence really patch somebody who both enjoys ikon as well as moving the pigment roughly as well as is fascinated past times all the nuances of peel tones.  Some convey commented that photos convey been the footing for her work.  Having seen the move I know that no photographic boob tube camera tin 'get' the peel tones as well as textures such every bit those seen inwards this painting.

Aleah has known well-nigh this prize for quite a few years but had never submitted whatever move earlier every bit she didn't intend her move was practiced enough.  With this ikon she felt she had something she wanted to 'put out there' - hence she built a crate as well as shipped it to the UK.  Having won she is immediately inwards a seat to pay off her educatee loans as well as arrive at goodness from the fourth dimension as well as infinite to focus on her career every bit a professional person artist.

For me - the sadness well-nigh Aleah having won the Award at her kickoff essay is that nosotros won't consider her move in i trial again inwards this province - unless she has an exhibition over here.  Hopefully the connectedness amongst The Flowers Gallery volition hateful that it is to a greater extent than rather than less likely. Plus it helps that she loves London as well as would similar to demonstrate here. I promise she immediately surveys the other UK Art Competitions for which her move is eligible

I asked her well-nigh her paints - she uses Old Holland as well as has a laid palette of well-nigh 15-18 colours.  She paints on cotton fiber duck which she primes amongst acrylic gesso as well as and hence several layers of petroleum primer earlier she starts to paint. In most of her paintings she leaves the background really neutral.

The ikon which won the prize was truly completed inwards only 3 intense weeks of painting.

She credits Jenny Saville as well as Ron Mueck as beingness telephone substitution influences on her art.

You tin watch the crits given to Aleah Chapin at the New York Academy of Art inwards ii videos produced as well as published past times the school.   I wonder how many artists reading this shipping are familiar amongst receiving crits of this sort?

This is my video of highlights of my interview amongst Aleah.



A workshop past times Aleah Chapin

For those aged 13-99(!) Aleah is didactics a drawing as well as ikon the figure workshop on Whidbey Island this summer. The dates are August xv - August 18, 2012 as well as the toll is $250. Bargain or what?

Note: The kickoff as well as entirely other American Artist to win the BP Portrait Award was Clive Smith inwards 1999 who won for a portrait called "Double Single"... He was as well as hence commissioned to pigment a portrait of Ian McKellen (as he as well as hence was) for the National Portrait Gallery's Collection every bit utilisation of his prize. Many thank y'all to Eleanor Macnair, the Press Manager at the NPG for excavation out this information.

BP Portrait Award 2012
Plus my website - which includes other portrait competitions - Portraiture - Resources for Artists

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