Exhibit Spotlights Artist Sydney Chastain-Chapman

If Sydney Chastain-Chapman’s paintings, chock full of modern iconography, seem to draw inspiration from collages it’s because they do.

Chastain-Chapman, 32, from North Selick, Mass., begins with a collage and then builds from there in Daliesque intensity. Her work has been described as “quirky, weird and pop” by the Tumblr blog ArtStars.  

Her works are on display in the Contemporary Collectors Gallery at the in Roslyn now through Nov. 4. She is showing alongside . NCMA is also .

“This exhibit represents different bodies of work I did from the last five years, so I’ve never seen these pieces together I one place,” said Chastain-Chapman, who lives in Hoboken, N.J. “I actually like seeing these together. It’s a new way of looking at it for me.” 

She pointed to one of her paintings, depicting a room cluttered with furniture. “For this one I was thinking about furniture, hoarding, clutter and collecting,” Chastain-Chapman said. “I found different images of furniture, made a collage and sketch and worked from those. That’s my process. I like to include different styles of painting in the work so that the space that’s created is fractured or disjointed.” 

Chastain-Chapman, whose works go for $10,000 and up, has Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell and a MFA from Hunter College.

So not only is the work vibrant, it’s well thought out.

“I mostly work by drawing, then making collages for my drawings and then using them as a reference for when I paint,” she said. “Have a lot different inspirations. I usually have an idea in mind.”