Historical styles influence biennale portrait

André Chumko

September 23, 2025

New Zealand artist Natalia Chaplin was chosen to exhibit at the London Art Biennale 2025. Her contemporary portrait Heaven Sent, was selected to hang alongside artists from around the world at the Gagliardi Gallery on King’s Rd, London, in July. The Post caught up with Chaplin on her return...

Hi Natalia! What draws you to historical styles in a contemporary context?

For the piece I took to London, I left nods to mainly three historical styles: the Pre-Raphaelites, Vanitas, and Fayum portraiture.

The Pre-Raphaelites were a small band of poets and artists in the 1800s who painted dreamy, idealised scenes that depicted rosy-cheeked, golden-haired women in glowing silk gowns, roses always in bloom, and sunlight that never seemed to fade. Their paintings often feel like a long summer afternoon and, even in their darker works, the lack of eye contact from the subject invites you to look or even to ogle. Yet in their own time, they were criticised for being too bright, too realistic, scandalous even. Maybe time has romanticised the paintings, or maybe our morals have changed.

Vanitas portraits were different because you never actually saw the person they were about. Instead, the canvas was filled with objects, a kind of visual language that only the educated could read. To the untrained eye, it might look like nothing more than a moody arrangement of books, pearls, skulls, and rotting fruit. But to those in the know, each item had meaning: books for learning, shells for travel, silver for wealth. And always, lurking in the composition, were symbols of mortality - cut flowers, hourglasses, fading light - reminders that beauty fades, riches vanish, and life itself is fleeting.

Fayum portraits were often painted on pieces of wood with gold backgrounds that showed how revered the subjects were by their families. They are shrouded in myth and mystery; were they hung in the deceased subject’s house until generations passed and the inhabitants no longer knew that person or were they simply enclosed in a sarcophagus to be buried, an almost unnecessary outlay for a family, but one to show how treasured the subject was.

How did your work resonate with such a global audience at this year's London Art Biennale?

Arriving, it felt like being at a bustling train station; there were people everywhere, happy chatter in the air which was occasionally cut through by laughter, music from a string quartet, and a delicious smell of chocolate cake (which definitely tasted just as good as it smelled). It was a stark contrast to the quiet solitude in which art is often created.

The language didn’t matter, everything was lost to the noise of the place, and the smiles. The fingers pointing at favourite parts of paintings - that was the art playing its part and connecting people across the barriers of language. In the quieter rooms, it was interesting to chat and hear different takes on not just my own art piece, but all the others in the hall, and most interestingly, to hear the stories of that person.

Your use of gold and layered acrylics creates a striking, timeless effect. How do materials shape the meaning in your work?

Choosing the materials and approach for each artwork is such a fun and core part of the process as it entirely shapes the outcome. You can feel if something was started more freely, or constrained, planned, and more meticulous, which was the path I took for this one. I wanted to build up the layers as would have been done by the Pre-Raphaelites but also constrict the painting with harsh edges to bring in a contemporary contrast to its romantic elements.

How do you approach the layered themes without overwhelming the viewer?

I wanted to end with a piece of art that would be visually interesting, without the viewer needing to read a whole heap of information, part of the fun of any form of art is handing it over to the viewer because people are naturally imaginative and build their own theories.

Finally, what's something not many people know about you?

I have a passion for flying planes and have a pilot’s licence.

To read the original article, click here... https://www.thepost.co.nz/culture/360828187/historical-styles-influence-biennale-portrait