Aleah Chapin

Aleah Chapin (born March 11, 1986) is an American 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,”[1] Chapin’s 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.

More recently, Chapin's work has taken a radically inward shift, expanding her visual language in order to better express the turbulent times we are living in.

She has been 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 2012 BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (London).

[6] She describes her award winning painting, Auntie, as "a map of her journey through life" with a "personification of strength through an unguarded and accepting presence".

[11] At least one critic has not received Chapin's works well, Brian Sewell called her piece which won the 2012 BP Award a "repellent…a grotesque medical record".