This week I saw an amazing show by Aleah Chapin at Flowers Gallery in New York City. The show is called “The Space Between Us” and is such an inspiring example of an artist continuing to follow their artistic inner direction and allowing her voice to evolve, even after having reached a pretty high level of art fame with a certain style!

Aleah is a true master at painting flesh, and in these new oil paintings she is pairing exquisite renderings of the figure with captivating gestural brushstrokes and abstract shapes.

Many of the paintings have a gorgeous depictions of feet, a symbol of remaining grounded.

In the press release it says: Chapin expands these reflections on collectivity and commonality in the accompanying video installation Finding Ground (2023), made during her five-day journey driving the paintings from Seattle to New York City in June 2023. Every time she made a stop on her travels, from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains, she would remove her shoes and film her bare feet, walking across the earth in an attempt, she writes, “to find common ground between the widening divisions in this country I call home.” Traversing the ground and talking to those she met on her way, she questioned our similarities, differences and, ultimately, what it is that connects and grounds us all. As she reflects poignantly: “I kept looking for common ground, because that is all I could do.”

I’m so proud of Aleah and her gorgeous new show!