Olivia Chigas is a New York based painter whose work explores isolation and longing, from a feminine perspective. Blending early modernist styles through cinematic lens, her figures are often turned away or lost in thought, evoking the quiet tension in Edward Hopper's explorations of urban loneliness. While Hopper captures stillness through architecture, Chigas’ emotional intimacy comes through the female form. Influenced by Tamara de Lempicka, Chigas’ figures embody a sensual strength, tempered with introspection. Her subjects inhabit spaces both familiar and surreal, echoing Giorgio de Chirico’s empty streets. The close-cropped compositions feel reminiscent of film stills, as if her figures are part of a larger story– one that remains just out of reach.

Olivia Chigas was born and raised in New York City, holds a BFA in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. She has participated in group exhibitions in New York at Voltz Clarke Gallery, VillageOneArt, the New York Academy of Art and at the Living Gallery in Brooklyn. She was named a Finalist in 2024 for the Bennett Prize for Female Figurative Realist Painters, an AXA Art Prize Award Finalist in 2023 and was recognized with a residency fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont.