Pippa Chapman

Pippa Chapman was born in Australia in 1968 and grew up in the town of Frankston, south of Melbourne. She spent a great deal of time travelling around Australia with her parents as a child, schooling via correspondence. Her family and close relatives were all artistic in one form or another and paintings and art surrounded her throughout her childhood. One in particular was a very large old English portrait of her great-great-great-grandfather, which fascinated her in her youth. Her mother also had a special book on `the Heidelberg School`, which was a selection of works by Australian painters from the late 1800s to the early 1900s featuring works by Sir Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and many others of the period who were tonal realists and impressionists. They captured the true Australian colours and light on canvas, and were an inspiration to a young artist. Pippa Chapman is a self-taught artist, having spent many hours studying the works of the Great Masters in galleries and museums around the world. Inspired by the Australian greats, she describes the style of her artwork also as `tonal realism`, with dramatic darks and lights set off against each other and vibrant colour in small areas. She paints exclusively from life, so all her images are set up in her studio. As an artist, she does not complete preliminary drawings and the image goes straight onto the canvas as a `tonal rub-in`, which she then rubs and sketches in with a rag to produce the initial map of the subject. With this as the basis, she begins to paint over it, working the whole picture up together and bringing the image gradually into focus. Pippa Chapman became a full time painter in 2001, when she found herself living in England for the first time. She gave herself a five-year time frame in which to make the transition from an amateur to a professional artist, which she has now achieved. Her work has been exhibited all over the United Kingdom and she was a finalist in the `Not the Turner Prize` in London 2003. She has also been awarded `Best Oil In Show` at the Society of Equestrian Artists Exhibition in London in 2003. Away from the easel, her loves include horses and travel. She lives in the UK with her long term partner, Stephen, who also shares her love of art.