In his new body of work, Sujay Shah draws on science fiction, myth and history in his paintings, to create hybrid beings - human, animal, and machine - caught in states of transition and gestation. Influenced in part by Octavia Butler’s book Lilith’s Brood, in which humans are subjected to alien intervention and adaptation, this sense of hybridity runs throughout the work in recurring motifs such as cyborg bodies, allegorical creatures, and surreal figures.
Created during a period of deep personal and global instability, this body of work marks a turning point in Shah’s practice. The works reflect the sensation of standing on shifting ground. By allowing space for ambiguity, strangeness, and complexity, he moves away from narrowing definitions of identity and instead places trust in intuition and process. The figures in these paintings emerge from landscapes marked by both breakdown and renewal. Shah is interested in the forms of life that arise from damaged systems - ecological, cultural, political, bodily, and spiritual. Ruined environments give way to new structures, and bodies change by developing extra layers, new organs, or mechanical extensions. Neither fully formed nor resolved, these figures convey vulnerability and uncertainty. They exist at a midpoint between organic, technological, and mythic lineages. They are not symbols of dystopia or progress, but transitional entities learning how to survive within altered and disorienting environments. At times they appear to be morphing and adapting; at others, they seem suspended, caught in the fragile space between dissolution and assembly.
In a world saturated with images and narratives that dictate what to think and feel, Shah’s work remains open-ended, inviting viewers to slow down, question what they see, and accept the subjective nature of meaning itself.
Shah earned his BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2013. After graduating, he lived in New York City, where he worked as a studio assistant to artists Paul Bloodgood and Anne Chu, an experience that deeply influenced his early artistic development. Shah has exhibited internationally in the United States (Savannah and New York), France, India, and Abu Dhabi. His work is part of the permanent collection at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His first solo exhibition, Forgive Us for Our Skins, opened at Circle Art Gallery’s new space in Nairobi in 2023. In 2024, he held his first museum solo exhibition, The Slant of Thirsting Mouths, at the SCAD Museum of Art in Atlanta. Group exhibitions include Luminous Riveries (2024), Gallery Dotwalk, India, Fictions (2022), Various Small Fires (2021), and I Will See What I Want to See (2019), all at Circle Art Gallery, If Not Now (2018) at the Cave Bureau, and Imperial Silhouettes (2024) at the Rizq Art Initiative in Abu Dhabi. Residencies include 32° East at the Ugandan Arts Trust in Kampala and The Factory in Lamu. He has taken part in the 1-54 London Contemporary African Art Fair (2023) and Art Paris (2024). In 2022, Shah was awarded the Writers Artists Travel Fellowship (WAFT) to the Venice Biennale by Wangechi Mutu Studio. In 2026 he will be taking part in the Cape Town Art Fair with Circle Art Gallery.
