Aleah Chapin facts for kids

Aleah Chapin (born March 11, 1986) is an American painter. She is known for her unique way of painting people. Her art makes us think differently about how bodies are shown in art.

Aleah grew up on an island in the Pacific Northwest. This community helped shape her art. Her paintings often explore ideas about growing older, gender, and beauty. More recently, her art has become more personal. It shows her feelings about the challenging world we live in.

Throughout her career, Aleah Chapin's art asks a big question: What does it mean to be in a body today?

Chapin earned her art degrees from Cornish College of the Arts and the New York Academy of Art. She has also attended special art programs in Germany and the United States. Her art has been shown in many places around the world. These include galleries in New York, London, and Hong Kong. Her work has also been displayed in museums like The Belvedere Museum in Austria.

She has received several important awards. These include the Promising Young Painters Award. She also won a grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. In 2012, she won the famous BP Portrait Award in London. Her art has been featured in many books and online articles. She was even part of a BBC documentary called "Portrait of an Artist." Aleah Chapin lives and works in Seattle, Washington.

Aleah Chapin's Life and Art

Early Life and Training

Aleah Chapin was born in Seattle, Washington. She grew up on Whidbey Island, which is also in Washington. She first studied art at the Cornish College of the Arts. Later, she went on to earn her master's degree at the New York Academy of Art (NYAA). After that, she received a special scholarship from the Academy.

Winning a Big Award

While she was still finishing her studies, Aleah entered a major art competition. It was the 2012 BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London. This is a very important international art prize.

Aleah won first place for her painting called Auntie. This painting showed a woman in her middle years. She beat over 2,100 other artists from around the world. The prize included a large sum of money, about £25,000. She also received a special commission to paint a portrait for the National Gallery's collection. Aleah Chapin was the first American woman artist to ever win this award.

The "Aunties" Project

Chapin has created a series of paintings called "Aunties." These portraits show women from her home area. She calls them "aunties" because they are like family to her. She uses oil paints and works from photographs of these women.

Aleah describes her award-winning painting, Auntie, in a special way. She says it's like "a map of her journey through life." The painting shows strength and an open, accepting feeling. Chapin explains that this work "examines my personal history through the people who have shaped it." She believes our bodies show the story of our lives. Painting these women helped her understand their journeys and her own shared history with them.

Exhibitions and Reactions

Aleah Chapin's first solo art show was called Aunties Project. It took place at the Flowers Gallery in New York in early 2013. A writer for the Huffington Post, Daniel Maidman, reviewed the show. He said her paintings showed great skill. He also noted that Chapin's unique way of seeing things made her paintings special. She painted older women whose age and experiences told a story.

He described her 2012 painting, Steps, as one of her most ambitious works. This painting showed a group of "aunties." He felt it had a strong, confident feeling, a bit like the paintings of the famous artist Rubens. Not everyone has loved Chapin's work, but that's common in the art world. Different people can see art in different ways.

Aleah says her art "examines my personal history through the people who have shaped it. On our bodies is left a map of our journey through life. The process of painting these women allowed me a glimpse of that journey and brought me into the present moment of our shared history."