Tessa Chaplin explores the representation of the Orient. She sees the Orient as a place in which one can disappear. In the same way Paul Gauguin (painter) disappeared from European civilization when he fled to Tahiti. Knowing that in the present day it is impossible to be as naïve as Gauguin, she searches for new ways to combine and revive classical images and painting techniques of different cultures and of different time periods. Exploring issues such as, cultural hybridisation and appropriation. One of Chaplin’s trademarks is the flatness of her images. This flatness does not only refer to modernism, but also to the stage. It reminds the public that the Orient is a fictional concept, invented by western society.