Mia Chaplin

About
Mia Chaplin (b.1990 South Africa) is a painter who lives and works in Cape Town. Working in oil on canvas and paper, her highly expressive works are characterised by their rich impasto surfaces and visible brushstrokes. Chaplin’s most recent works emphasize a muted colour palette of pink fleshy tones and golden highlights. Consisting of still lifes, figure studies and landscapes, her work seems to meditate on the familiar. Her loose, erratic style of painting – synonymous with that of the impressionists – is intuitive, heightening the emotionality of her pieces. They communicate a sense of estrangement; reflecting a detachment between the self and her surroundings. Her works sway between voyeurism and intimate interaction, while remaining consistently self-referential.
Since completing her BFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2011, Chaplin has hosted four solo exhibitions, Mouth (2018), Under a Boiling River (2017) and Binding Forms (2016), with WHATIFTHEWORLD and most recently, Underbelly (2019), with No Man’s Art Gallery in Amsterdam. She has furthermore extended her painting practice into printmaking, hosting a mini-exhibition of monotypes from the series, The Making of a Sharp Blade (2017), in collaboration with Warren Editions, Cape Town. Chaplin has completed artist residency programmes at Cité Internationale Des Artes in the Marais district, Paris (2018), Nirox Arts Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa (2016) and at OBRAS Foundation in Alentejo, Portugal (2015).
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2019 | Underbelly, No Man's Art Gallery, Amsterdam |
2018 | Mouth - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
2017 | Under a Boiling River - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Johannesburg |
2016 | Binding Forms - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town |
2014 | Mia Chaplin: Ceremony, Salon 91, Cape Town |
2011 | Mia Chaplin: No Place, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town |
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 | Matereality, Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town |
Proxies, Gallery, Gallery, Johannesburg | |
2019 | Measures of Poetry, GoGo Collective, Bogardenkapel Brugge, Belgium |
Outside, RBK Contemporary | |
2018 | Showroom, Galerie extérieure at Cité internationale des arts, Paris |
A letter to my 22 year-old self, BKHZ, Johannesburg | |
2017 | Nano, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town |
The Making of a Sharp Blade, Warren Editions, Cape Town | |
You Leave Me with This?, No End Contemporary, Johannesburg | |
Cape Town Art Fair, Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town | |
Lady Garden, Cavalli Wine Estate, Cape Town | |
2016 | No Man’s Art Gallery, Tehran |
No Man’s Art Gallery, Shanghai | |
South African Art Exhibition, Galerie Pat ries van Dorst, Netherlands | |
Cape Flower Show, The Castle, Cape Town | |
For What its Worth, No End Contemporary, Johannesburg | |
FUGLY, Die Voorkamer, Cape Town | |
Sewing Paradise: a Sisterhood through Suzani, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town | |
Nano, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town | |
2015 | Wet Paint, Die Voorkamer, Cape Town |
Cape Town Art Fair, The Avenue, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town | |
That Art Fair , The Palms, Cape Town | |
New Voices 01 - WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town | |
Surface: Emerging South African Painters, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town | |
Out of Context, UJ Art Gallery, Johannesburg | |
Pink, Chandler House, Cape Town | |
Paint it Black, Salon91, Cape Town | |
2014 | Cape Town Art Fair, The Pavillion, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town |
Cubicle, Infecting the City Public Arts Festival, Cape Town | |
Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg | |
Art in Red Light #10, Art Fair, Amsterdam | |
SA Art Now, No Man’s Art Gallery, Amsterdam | |
Florabunda, Die Voorkamer, Cape Town | |
2013 | Cape Town Art Fair, The Look Out, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town |
In Good Company, Irma Stern Museum, Cape Town | |
Collections and Archives, Salon 91, Cape Town | |
One in a Million, Salon 91, Cape Town | |
I’d Rather Be Swimming, Salon 91, Cape Town | |
2012 | Impression: Sunset, Salon 91, Cape Town |
2010 | First Edition, These Four Walls Gallery, Cape Town |