Sujay Shah
'The Slant of Thirsting Mouths'
For his first solo museum exhibition, artist Sujay Shah (SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2013) presents bold, colorful paintings that depict wild animals in lush domestic interiors. In Shah’s works, fauna native to his homeland — lions, zebras, gazelles, leopards, and wildebeest — express their feral nature in spaces adorned with big-game taxidermy hunting trophies and Victorian-style furnishings commonly found in luxury tourist safari lodges in Africa. By juxtaposing the untamable animal with Western colonial ornamentation, Shah upends preconceived notions of order and civility.
For his first solo museum exhibition, artist Sujay Shah (SCAD B.F.A., painting, 2013) presents bold, colorful paintings that depict wild animals in lush domestic interiors. In Shah’s works, fauna native to his homeland — lions, zebras, gazelles, leopards, and wildebeest — express their feral nature in spaces adorned with big-game taxidermy hunting trophies and Victorian-style furnishings commonly found in luxury tourist safari lodges in Africa. By juxtaposing the untamable animal with Western colonial ornamentation, Shah upends preconceived notions of order and civility.
About the artist
Sujay Shah (b. 1991, Nairobi, Kenya) graduated with a B.F.A. in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2013. After college, Shah moved to New York where he began working as a studio assistant for artist Paul Bloodgood. In 2022, Shah was awarded a travel fellowship facilitated by Wangechi Mutu Studio. He presented his first solo exhibition in 2023 at the Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi. He lives and works in Kenya.
Install Views
Credits
The Slant of Thirsting Mouths is organized by SCAD Museum of Art assistant curator Brittany Richmond and presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2024.
