Swiss-born Diane Chappalley is based in London.
She obtained her BA at City and Guilds of London Art School, where she received the Chadwyck-Healey Prize for Painting, and in 2017, her Master’s degree from the Slade School of Fine Art, where she was awarded the UCL dean’s list prize. In 2018 she received the Alice Bailey Award in Switzerland, and she has been nominated for many other prizes. She was artist in residence at the Academy of Visual Art at Hong Kong’s Baptist University in 2017, and her work has been exhibited in the UK, Hong Kong, and Switzerland.
Chappalley’s fantasy works, inspired by her personal history and Swiss homeland, translate sensory experience into reflections on our psyche. Her pictorial language brings a contemporary approach to the exploration of the interface between reality and imagination.
Chappalley’s vision of homecoming is encapsulated in the words of writer and painter Etel Adnan, “Ultimately, our real home is our life.” In the sense that we carry home with us throughout life, wherever we go, her work reflects the paradox that we are always at home, and always coming home. Chappalley’s painting is a form of homecoming, a channel for the recreation of memories, and a delving into love and fear, dreams, and nightmares. ‘Getting Closer’ is all about the silent, introspective search to return to the past, and in so doing, return to home in the present.
