Mia Chaplin (b. 1990; South Africa) is a painter and sculptor who lives and works in Cape Town. Working in oil on canvas and paper, as well as in bronze and plaster sculpture, her highly expressive works are characterized by their rich impasto surfaces and visible brushwork. Her loose, style of painting is intuitive, heightening the emotion of her pieces. Chaplin’s works are her impressions of the female experience in relation to sexuality, sensuality, intimacy and violence. Since completing her BFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2011, Chaplin has presented various solo exhibitions including “Swamp” (2022), “Mouth” (2018), “Under a Boiling River” (2017), and “Binding Forms” (2016), with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery in Cape Town as well as “Twister” (2021) and “Underbelly” (2019), with No Man’s Art Gallery in Amsterdam.
Recently in Paris, Whitewall Projects raised the curtain on an inaugural group exhibition. Coinciding with Art Basel Paris, near the Grand Palais, the show, “From Nature” dazzled throughout a chic Parisian apartment on 37 Roosevelt 75008 Paris. Curated by Emma Donnersberg, Marion Guggenheim, and Nicolas Dewavrin, the presentation shined light on visionaries Maho Nakamura, Fabien Adèle, Apollinaria Broche, Mia Chaplin, Eugénie Didier, Daria Dmytrenko, DRIFT, Sasha Ferré, Pandora Graessl, Rafael Y. Herman, Alexandre Lenoir, William Macnad, Kami Mierzvvinsk, Roman Moriceau, Ileana García Magoda, Louis Alcaraz, and Chaplin. The lush exhibition was staged by Donnersberg, enhanced by Flos lighting and Diptyque fragrances. Whitewall spoke with Chaplin recently to talk about her creative practice.
Portrait of Mia Chaplin, Photo by Matt Slater.
WHITEWALL: How would you describe your creative practice?
MIA CHAPLIN: Unconfined and unrestricted, at times obsessive and demanding, at times playful. Always engulfing. I often feel as though I am creating a maze for myself and searching for the way out.
WW: How do you see your work in relationship to nature? How do you connect with nature?
MC: Nature has an incredible ability to restore and rebuild itself through ongoing cycles of growth and destruction. A lot of energy goes into mankind attempting to restrain and control the natural environment and yet it always finds a path for itself to endure. Natural beings are intrinsically connected to and dependant on their environment for survival, they cannot exist as lone individuals. The bodies in my work are also not self-contained, they overlap with one another and their environment, touching and spreading out over the entire surface of the canvas.
For me, being in nature makes me feel connected to and a part of something much bigger and more enduring than myself. I think painting sometimes makes me feel the same way.
“For me, being in nature makes me feel connected to and a part of something much bigger and more enduring than myself,”
Mia Chaplin
WW: Tell us about your color palette. What tones you’re drawn to?
MC: My color palette revolves around the pinks, peaches and browns of human flesh. My bodies bleed into their environments, casting a warm glow on their surrounds. I’m drawn to the two-week-old flower bouquet palette: fresh tones alongside those that are about to turn dirty and then hints at those that are downright rotten.
Courtesy of Mia Chaplin, Photo by Matt Slater.
Mia Chaplin’s Transformative Creative Process
WW: Can you tell us about the pieces that will be on view in the exhibition?
MC: I will be showing a painting titled “Your Red Carpet.” The painting is of two figures draped together in an intimate environment, surrounded by swirling bodies.
The title is a reflection on power dynamics in relationships, inferring that the one offers to lie down and be walked over in order to satisfy and retain the love of the other.
WW: What was the starting point for this work?
MC: The work began with taking some pictures in my sister Erin’s studio. I then used Photoshop to create a glitch of overlapping and some repeated photographic segments. This made the reference quite difficult to make sense of which enabled me to rely on it a lot less when making the painting. I wanted the result to be bodies that defy the boundaries of their skin so that the viewer cannot immediately tell where one ends and another begins.
WW: Where do you typically being with an artwork?
MC: I generally begin by looking at photographs and waiting for something to grab me. Then I will take the image and disrupt it in some way, often working on Photoshop and layering other images over it. I keep adding and erasing, adjusting colors and shapes until I’m happy with the composition. I then go straight to my canvas and begin painting from the reference I’ve created.
Courtesy of Mia Chaplin, Photo by Matt Slater.
The Exploration and Experimentation Inside Mia Chaplin’s Cape Town Studio
WW: Can you tell us about your studio?
MC: My studio is a beautiful mess above a Greek restaurant in the city center. It is filled with the sounds of people from the kitchen below and delicious smells that waft up while they’re cooking. It is quite a large space with high ceilings and skylights. There is an attempt at being organised which is totally abandoned when I am working. My work takes a long time to dry so there are a lot of pieces hanging up and plenty of old experiments and trash that future me may or may not return to.
“My studio is a beautiful mess above a Greek restaurant in the city center,”
Mia Chaplin
WW: What is a typical day like for you there?
MC: Every day is a little different but I generally arrive at around 9:45am and do a bit of admin at my desk, which I don’t love. On my favourite days I get to start a new painting which means listening to loud music, feeling excited and not sitting down for 6-8 hours. Other days involve me staring at a painting turning my head upside down and swinging between the extremes of self-loathing, despair and tentative hope. I always have a few ongoing sculptures that I’m working on so between painting I will usually be sitting on the floor or at a table listening to podcasts and working on those. After being here all day I often need to go home and cover my head with a blanket for half an hr for some sensory relief.
WW: Is there an element of your creative process you make sure to do each day?
MC: Yes absolutely, I always spend part of the day in front of my work, just looking. I often take pictures of what I’m working on with my phone and when I get home I will just stare at it the entire evening, hoping it will tell me what to do next.
WW: What are you working on next in the studio?
MC: I am working towards a big solo show which will be opening in February 2025 at Whatiftheworld gallery in Cape Town. I’m really excited about a larger sculptural installation I’m working on and can’t wait to see it outside of my studio.
Portrait of Mia Chaplin, Photo by Matt Slater.
Courtesy of Mia Chaplin, Photo by Matt Slater.
