Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Chaitow immigrated to Sydney, NSW in 1978. In 2007 Chaitow completed her Masters of Fine Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. In the same year she spent three months completing a residency at the Cité of Paris, returning for a second residency in 2010.
In 2006 Chaitow immersed herself in the theatre and spent much time sketching productions by the Bell Shakespeare Company. As she has stated, this experience influenced her representation of the human form:
_The figures within my paintings capture the essence of the whimsical nature of the human being and the frailty of our existence. As an artist I articulate the figure in space, its relationship to other characters and its internal emotional landscape. I link this inner world to the external, and the narrative lies in the disjunction of magic and foreboding which describes the world we live in as both quirky and terrifying. _
Chaitow was selected as a finalist in the Dobell Prize for Drawing in 2009 and 2010 and her work was hung in the Blake Prize in 2004, 2005, and 2009. In 2006 Chaitow was Highly Commended in Art on the Rocks, Sydney, NSW. Chaitow has had five solo exhibitions since 2007 and exhibited in over forty group shows since 1988.
- Writers:
- Downer, Stella
- Date written:
- 2007
- Last updated:
- 2011
