Bree Chapin is a painter and visual artist based between New York City and Lisbon. Her portraiture and figurative work is known for its provocative themes and use of bright, aggressive color—primarily fluorescent pink. Bree’s work has been exhibited regularly for over a decade in New York and beyond (exhibition list). Her pieces are included in several private collections around the world.
She has also built a reputation as a creative and competent curator, organizer, and producer of art events (CV).
Artist Statement
My current body of work explores multi-faceted moments of the human experience through portraiture and still life. I want to capture the sometimes hazy, fleeting beats of being— times of revelry, excess, and heightened emotion. I am curious about the politics of irresponsibility. To bring these images to life I have abandoned all other colors for an aggressive, yet dreamy mono palette of fluorescent pink.
While in the past I had explored visual expression through a variety of vehicles including mixed media and collage, I have in recent years returned to my natural resonance found in the immediacy of painting.
Why Pink?
My paintings are known for suggestive imagery and delirious all-pink palette. I have spent over 10 years creating art in an ever-brighter, more electric, and smaller range of hues. In 2021, I chose to focus my attention on this single color, forsaking all others. Why pink? There are so many reasons… conscious and otherwise. Pink is at once loud and aggressive yet hazy and dreamy. It’s punk rock and strawberry shortcake. It’s “let’s be friends” and “fuck you.”
The more I use it, the more I want to use it. I am increasingly compelled by the aesthetic, physical, and symbolic qualities of the color. People look at a splash of pink and form immediate opinions. There is a power in pink, a history. We lob so much baggage on this color—and it has never once cared what we think of it.