Penumbra I: The theme of old stone walls is carried through much of my work. I have painted a Penumbra Series which reflects the deep, dark places found in forgotten woods and along neglected walking trails. In this work I’m eager to show the energy and beauty to be found there. The glint of light found in shadows.

An American modern/impressionistic oil painter, Chapman has lived most of her adult life in Hanover, NH. She received her MFA in Visual Studies at Vermont College, Montpellier, VT, (1993).
Travel has always been an important component of Chapman’s artistic development. Her trips have taken her to Japan, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Germany and France.
She was a guest of a family in Mito, Japan. There, she recorded the immediate life of a Japanese family through drawings and watercolors. She left much of her work there as gifts to her gracious host family and their friends, (1982).
Seeking her family roots in Belgium, she went to the village of Dinant, the childhood home of her father. She wanted to personally investigate the place where WWI brought terror to her family in August 1914. She returned from Belgium with a body of work that explored the personal history of her Belgian family background during this period of WWI. Through her paintings, she states, “It is my intent to find a real place, dates (sic) to bring a degree of healing and peace”. Her work, titled Dinant, 1914 was accepted in the show Visions Toward Wellness, Capitol One, Providence, RI, (2000).
She and her husband, Norm Chapman, have been frequent visitors to France, Germany and Italy. Chapman travels with art supplies. She loves to wander into the rural countryside to paint and sketch in her visual journals.
Since she returned to her native Rhode Island in 1997, Chapman has established herself as a Rhode Island-based artist. Adjunct Professor in the Art Department of Rhode Island College, she taught from 1997 to 2008. She was an artist member of Hera Gallery, Wakefield, RI. Her show of abstract paintings, Thresh-Holds, was an exploration of images inspired by stone found on Narragansett Beach, (1999). Proud of her artist adult children, she shared the Hera gallery space with son and daughter, Alex a painter and Susannah a printmaker, in the show Chapman, Chapman, & Chapman, (2001).
Her work and focus now firmly celebrates the Rhode Island rock walls, fields and woodlands found in and around her home and studio in Saunderstown, RI. These prevalent themes clearly are an inspiration work. The South County Art Association awarded her the C. Gordon Harris Award for her work, Daylight I, as best painting in oils, (2007). She exhibited at the Krause Gallery show, Expressive Painting, Moses Brown School, Providence, RI, (2008). Her painting, The Walk, featured in this exhibition, was directly inspired by the walking trails found at Casey Farm, next to her home. This work can be seen in Art New England (November, 2008). The Walk was also featured on the cover of Poet’s Voices, (2008).