Gabriella Kaplan was born in Athens, Greece in 1961. She moved to Paris in 1979 and graduated from Ihe Sorbonne with a Master's degree in Fine Art with Distinction, in 1984. She participated in the international New Media II exhibition at the Konsthall Museum, Malmo, Sweden and several other group shows in Paris until she moved to London in 1985 where she worked as a teacher, illustrator and Iranslator while pursuing her painting. She had her first solo exhibition at the Hans Gieles Gallery in Amsterdam in 1986. In 1988 she exhibited at the IKON Gallery, Birmingham, U.K. She moved to Zimbabwe in 1989 where she married exiled South African documentary filmmaker Mark Kaplan. They collaborated on a number of video productions and she lectured at the Harare Polytechnic. In November 1991 they moved to Cape Town where she taught at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, for 3 years until the birth of her daughter Alexia, in 1996.