SAN DIEGO, CA — (September 13th, 2023) Beginning September 23 and running through December 30, 2023 at Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego/North, Oceanside resident Chapin will show Tell Me About Yourself, a series of paintings using bold color, swirling patterns, and enigmatically camouflaged figures to portray a society that treats beauty and goods as social currency. In this new body of work, Chapin employs the visual strategies of advertising to reflect on the current moment in which our identity has become our brand. As our growing dependence on technology encourages us to broadcast, and often monetize, every detail of our existence, deciphering the parts of us that feel authentic versus appropriated becomes increasingly challenging. Chapin’s paintings are deliberately overstimulating, almost hallucinogenic, translating the sensation of consumer culture’s oversaturation into visual form.

The exhibition is a continuation of ICA San Diego’s season-long exploration of consumption. Borrowing compositional structures from digital advertising, billboards, showrooms, and infomercials, Chapin presents carefully staged tableaux that are designed to seduce. Androgynous figures are draped across furniture and disembodied hands suggestively caress decorative vases, while Chapin’s perspectival distortions produce an almost hallucinogenic effect. Through this deliberate disorientation, Chapin conflates the objectification of the human form with the fetishization of the object itself. What–or who–is being sold becomes unclear. This confusion echoes Chapin’s own ambivalence as both a participant in, and a critic of, capitalist consumption. Her subjects are imbued with a similarly paradoxical sense of desire: to exceed and defy society's expectations; to strive for both belonging and individuality.

Thank You For Sharing, Chapin’s room-sized installation in Studio 2 functions as a kind of social prism, refracting individual consumer identities into their constituent parts. Through reflective walls, curated furniture displays, cast objects, and a commissioned soundscape, Chapin encourages us to think about our fragmented selves, particularly how our digital and physical presences merge and split.

Chapin was born and raised in Encinitas, California. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from San Francisco Art Institute in 2016, and she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from University of California San Diego in 2022. Chapin has shown her work throughout southern California including a solo show with Oceanside Museum of Art, Quint Gallery, and group exhibitions with Oolong Gallery, False Cast Gallery, and the San Diego Central Library. She has also recently created public-facing murals in both Leucadia and Oceanside. She lives and works in Oceanside, California.

The public is invited to a special C You Saturday! event at ICA San Diego/North in Encinitas to meet Chapin and discover more about her artistic practices on October 21 from 4 to 8 p.m. As always, attendance to ICA San Diego is free to the public, as well as to all monthly C You Saturday! family and community events.

Images of the exhibition are available to the media by request.

Engagement Experiences at ICA San Diego / North in Encinitas
Every Sunday at 12:00 PM
ICA San Diego / North
1550 S El Camino Real, Encinitas, CA 92024

Our Engagement Guides craft interactive encounters with exhibitions, igniting meaningful conversations and imparting knowledge. They act as the vital link connecting contemporary art and the community, deepening the visitor’s bond with the work of our artists. ICA San Diego envisions a welcoming, safe, and inclusive space where the public can meet, explore, question, learn, and influence the future, with Engagement Guides as essential partners on this journey. Engagement Guides create a new and different experience for visitors.Sunday, Sept 24 - Taylor Chapin: Tell Me About Yourself
Sunday, Oct 1 - Sasha Koozel Reibstein: The End is Near the Beginning
Sunday, Oct 8 - Sasha Koozel Reibstein: The End is Near the Beginning
Sunday, Oct 15 Taylor Chapin: Tell Me About Yourself
Sunday Oct 22 Danielle Dean - Bazar
Sunday Oct 29 Danielle Dean - Bazar

 

ICA Podcast: A Conversation Between Taylor Chapin and Jordan Karney Chaim, PhD, Curator at ICA San Diego

Listen to ICA San Diego’s first-ever podcast. We feature artist-curated playlists, conversations, interviews with exhibiting artists--and more! Follow us on Spotify and listen to our new podcast episode to learn more about Taylor Chapin’s practice and exhibition.
We invited Taylor to curate a playlist of her favorite music, and it’s now available for everyone to enjoy.

 

About the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego

ICA San Diego is a platform for experimental art and learning with a mission to question everything. Founded in 2021, yet built on over 100 years of combined experience, our programming is cutting edge yet accessible; daring and thoughtful; challenging and inviting. Our exhibitions, installations, commissions, classes, and workshops reflect ICA San Diego’s commitment to engage the issues of the moment and provide a space for the community to come together and consider the world in which we live. ICA San Diego welcomes everyone to gather, learn, question, and experience the new. ICA San Diego is always free and open to the public. ICA San Diego / Central is located at 1439 El Prado in Balboa Park, and ICA San Diego / North is located at 1550 S. El Camino Real in Encinitas.

 

Contact:
Christine Martinez, 858-663-7887
(Press@icasandiego.org)
icasandiego.org // @icasandiego