About 

Aleah Chapin (b. 1986 Seattle, 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. Her work has explored aging, gender and beauty, influenced in part by the community within which she was raised on an island in the Pacific Northwest. In 2020, Chapin’s work took a radical shift inward, expanding her visual language in order to better express the turbulent times we are living in. Consistent throughout her career, Chapin’s work asks the question: What does it mean to exist within a body today?

Chapin holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. She has attended residencies at the Leipzig International Art Program (Germany) and MacDowell (United States) and has exhibited both Nationally and Internationally at Flowers Gallery (New York, London, Hong Kong), The Belvedere Museum (Vienna), and the National Portrait Gallery (London) among others. Chapin was a recipient of the 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). Her work has been published extensively, including New American Paintings, ArtMaze Magazine, 50 Contemporary Women Artists, and Radio Juxtapoz. Chapin is also a subject in the BBC documentary titled “Portrait of an Artist”. Most recently, Chapin was a featured artist and co-juror for an exhibition titled More Disruption: Representational Art in Flux at Oceanside Museum of Art in California.

Aleah Chapin and her husband, filmmaker Chris Rodriguez, made a short film about the shift in her work titled Walking Backwards. It is an Official Selection in several film festivals including Cinequest, New York Short Film Festival, Berlin Short Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and Atlanta Docufest. Aleah and Chris won the Best Seattle Filmmakers Award from the Seattle Film Festival and Best Short Documentary from Venice Film Festival.

Aleah Chapin currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.