ALEAH CHAPIN: OVER THE EDGE By Taylor Transtrum
Aleah Chapin welcomes viewers into a world marked by “edges and in betweens” in her latest exhibition at Flowers Gallery.
Recently, Aleah Chapin circumnavigated Mount Rainier, a large active stratovolcano visible from the streets of Seattle. Nine days and one 95-mile trek later, she returned to her Pacific Northwest home— exhausted yet renewed from her journey—taking with her a reminder of why she does what she does.
“Having that nine days in the wild—being out in intense rain and sun and dirt and in complete nature and being so close to it—at first it was uncomfortable for me, but then you sort of just melt into it. We are made up of the same stuff, ultimately, when you get down to it,” she says. “I think the human body and landscapes have been entwined for our whole existence and it’s only in the very recent years where we’ve had this separation. I think they mirror really well together. We are both fed by nature and it can destroy us. It has such a power over us. In my recent body of work, I’m trying to discover more about what that relationship is.”
Known for her larger-than-life nude paintings, Chapin is a master at depicting the human body, often portrayed among nature. Growing up on an island north of Seattle, the scenery of the Pacific Northwest helped shape who she is today. However, it wasn’t until Chapin was living in the East Coast earning her MFA from the New York Academy of Art that she realized just how much she craved the nature she was surrounded by as a child.
“I think the landscape we grew up in definitely imprints on us,” she explains. “It absolutely shows in my work—I think it always will.”
Another hallmark of Chapin’s work is her unapologetic portrayal of the female body. This is unmissable
in her 2013 series The Aunties Project, a collection of nude oil paintings starring a group of older women—affectionately nicknamed “the aunties”—in all of their highly detailed glory.
“They’re more than just my mom’s friends,” she says of the aunties, who make an appearance in her latest body of work. “They are particularly incredible people. They are much more comfortable in their bodies than many people are in our society.”
By placing her subjects out in the elements, the artist juxtaposes their soft flesh against the hard contours of cliffs and rocky surfaces. Real, raw and unfiltered, the works are a celebration of what it means to be human. Chapin shows that there is beauty in every crease, every wrinkle and every edge. Hence the title for her upcoming show, What Happens at the Edge, on view this fall at Flowers Gallery’s New York location.
“Since winning the U.K.’s esteemed National Portrait Gallery BP Portrait Award in 2012, Aleah Chapin’s nude portraits have continued to provoke and inspire audiences with their portrayal of joyful resistance, energy and strength,” says gallery owner Matthew Flowers. “Her new work in What Happens at the Edge broadens the debate around the visibility of aging or so-called imperfect bodies in images of everyday life.”
While the works featured in the series ultimately came together as a united force, they were not born out of cohesion—at least, not intentionally. “I generally don’t think up concepts and create a painting about it. I paint objects intuitively and try to find the words later,” Chapin explains. “I like to not necessarily pin down what a show is about and follow what’s interesting to me in that moment. ‘Edges’ and ‘in betweens’ were something I started to notice in these scenes. The edge or contrast between a body and a rock—it could be something as simple as that. But also those edges and in betweens of emotions is something I’ve noticed.”
The paintings walk the line between loud, explosive and bold expressions and scenes flushed with a more delicate, subdued power.
Take Splitting the Silence and We Held the Mountains on Our Shoulders. Both works were created around the time when the #MeToo movement was gathering steam. Both express the complexity of what Chapin was feeling surrounding this—but both say very different things.
“I didn’t realize this until later, but I was just feeling this need to scream and this need for loudness—which is not at all who I am—but I was just feeling it. I was feeling this need to scream and be louder, through the painting...I’m learning that I need to do the things that scare my the most, and being loud and direct goes against what, as a woman, I have been taught,” she says of Splitting the Silence, which shows a woman on the edge of a cliff, screaming into the abyss.
We Held the Mountains on Our Shoulders, which features a group of women, intertwined and supporting each other’s bodies in solidarity, demonstrates a different form of resistance. “It’s subdued and there’s a weight to it—both emotionally and physically,” she says.
Another subtle-yet-loud painting in the series is Turning, which Chapin found particularly challenging to create. In the self-portrait, the artist is framed by fallen leaves, half of her face exposed in the light, the other half hidden in the dark.
“What I like about it is this extreme light and darkness in it,” she says. “I feel very at home in the blues and in the darkness and in the shadow rather than in the spotlight. And yet, as I’m looking at this painting I’m turning into the spotlight.”
Based off a photograph that her husband took while celebrating their anniversary on a hike in Ireland, Chapin came close to never painting Turning. “Doing a self-portrait is very uncomfortable for me,” she explains. “But I like to push my edges. As soon as I started painting myself, I was able to see differently—not look at myself through my own eyes, I suppose. It was really freeing and empowering to find the beauty in me, as I do when I paint anyone.”
Serving as a portal into the imagined world where these works live is Where the Edges Meet, which will hang in its own room in the gallery show. The monumental landscape is comprised of two parts— (Over) and (Under)—in which Chapin invites viewers to imagine themselves standing in the work by omitting figures entirely from the paintings. Here, she says, is “very much that in between.”
What Happens at the Edge will be on view through November 2, with a special butoh dance performance by “auntie” Maureen “Momo” Freehill taking place towards the end of the show. For performance dates, contact Flowers Gallery in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.