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Nahem Shoa's painting
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Nahem Shoa, a contemporary artist and painter was born in 1968 in London, Notting Hill, the city where he stills lives and works. Nahem Shoa's childhood was bohemian as both his parents were artists who had just completed an MA Fine Art, at the Royal College of Art, London.
At the age of four he decided to become an artist, inspired by two vivid childhood experiences, eating jelly off the bodies of two naked people in a hip 1972 London Art Happening and watching his father perched on scaffolding being painted, as a spinning fool, onto a three thousand square foot mural by artist Robert Lenkiewicz. A period as a graffiti artist culminated in 1985 in a big hip hop festival in the Riverside Studio's, where he showed his work alongside legendary American Bronx Graffiti artist Lee 163. Nahem Shoa went on to do a B.A degree in Fine Art in Manchester College of Art and a Postgraduate at The Royal Drawing School. Around this time he began to be trained in the classical tradition by the infamous British painter Robert Lenkiewicz. |
2022 News
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WHY DO ARTISTS PAINT THEMSELVES
A Talk by artist Nahem Shoa The Atkinson - Southport October 2022 - March 2023 
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Artists for over three thousand years did not make self-portraits and they only really began to do so in the 14th century. This was when the great artists stopped being anonymous craftspeople and became art superstars. That is why we all know what Frida Kahlo , Van Gogh, Picasso and Tracy Emin look like.
Through their Self Portraits, they have all become icons. Celebrity culture is a modern offshoot of this kind of immortality and intern has triggered our love of taking selfies. How we look to others has become more important than how we think and believe of ourselves. This talk explores the meanings behind some of the greatest Self Portraits from the 14th century to the present day and why they remain fresh and relevant, even now in the 21st century. The best self-portraits are some of the greatest art ever made because they are about the human condition and reveal profound inner truths about the artist, but also speak to our own unique humanity. |
Now based in London, he studied in Manchester. Shoa has a long term commitment to representing people of colour.He strives to capture the unique skin colour that is individual to the sitter and not a racial stereotype. Shoa’s goal is to paint black skin as intensely as Lucien Freud painted white
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Manchester City Art Gallery
New acquisition: Nahem Shoa Manchester Art Gallery is delighted to announce that a painting by Nahem Shoa has been gifted by the artist to the collection. Now based in London, Shoa studied in Manchester and this portrait was painted in his final year at Manchester School of Art and was exhibited in his degree show. The painting depicts Shoa’s childhood friend, the artist Desmond Haughton. Shoa painted the portrait from life at night after the college day ended. It took 2 months between the winter and spring of 1991 in Haughton’s studio in Hulme, Manchester and involved around 12 two-hour sittings. After finishing college, Shoa returned to London where he did one final sitting with Haughton to bring out more subtlety and presence from the portrait. Shoa has a long term commitment to representing people of colour. He strives to capture the unique skin colour that is individual to the sitter and not a racial stereotype. Shoa’s goal is to paint black skin as intensely as Lucien Freud painted white skin. This painting joins another smaller work by Shoa in the collection titled View from Hulme Flat c.1990. This was the view from Desmond Haughton’s flat, the location where the portrait sittings occurred. It shows the Crescents in Hulme shortly before they were demolished in 1993, a place where many of the city’s artists and creatives lived. |
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During his successful career, Shoa has become well known for his Giant Heads, a series of portraits painted up to 15 times life size. He has generously donated many of his portraits of black or dual heritage people to British museums and galleries to rebalance the lack of positive imagery of black Britons in their collections. His work features in numerous collections including The Laing, Newcastle, The Box, Plymouth, Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries, The Herbert, Coventry, Southampton City Art Gallery, Bury Art Gallery, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and the V&A, London.
Nahem Shoa: Face of Britain Southampton City Art Gallery 26 September 2020- 20 September 2021
Face of Britain poster
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Nahem Shoa in 2019, September 21st to November 23rd is exhibiting a selection of his striking Black British portraits called Black Presence at The Atkinson, Southport. Alongside his work will be loans from The Tate, The Laing, Southampton Art Gallery, Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, The Herbert, Coventry and RAMM, Exeter, Christ Church Art Gallery, Hartlepool.
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Image: Nahem Shoa. Head of Desmond Haughton
1997. Oil on canvas, 48.2 x 55.8 cms, acquired by Southampton City Art Gallery 
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‘The portrait has always been political, I want my portraits to be great works of art but also to work for positive change’. Nahem Shoa
Artist Nahem Shoa has curated a selection of his striking portrait paintings alongside key historic and contemporary paintings of black portrait sitters. Nahem is especially keen to increase the number of positive images of black people in British art collections and has donated many of his own works to public collections. The exhibition includes work by Joshua Reynolds and Sonia Boyce, as well as Allan Ramsay’s outstanding ‘Portrait of an African (probably Ignatius Sancho.
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DESIREE IN HER OWN WORDS
Desiree Sanderson speaks about the process of sitting for artist Nahem Shoa's painting "Desiree on the Bed". She talks about friendship, racism, learning to love herself and how powerful she felt sitting for Nahem Shoa over many years. |
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Nahem Shoa painted from life Giant Heads of people from Black and Ethnic backgrounds until 2007. He then turned to other subjects that drew on 'unreal' sources, photograph, TV and film as well as memory. He created hugely multi-layered paintings bursting with incident, including floods and nuclear explosions which continued with the theme of death. Most recently Shoa made another dramatic move – from a tangible kind of reality to something quite intangible – where, contrary to all previous methods of working, accident was allowed to prompt imagination.
In 2004 Shoa had his two large-scale, solo museum and art gallery painting exhibitions, Youth Culture, in Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum and Giant Heads Multi-Culture, at the Hartlepool City Art Gallery. In 2005 he had another one-man exhibition, We Are Here, at The Herbert, Coventry City Art Gallery. In 2006 he exhibited twenty-eight Giant Heads in Bury City Art Gallery In an Exhibition called Facing Yourself.
In 2004 Shoa had his two large-scale, solo museum and art gallery painting exhibitions, Youth Culture, in Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum and Giant Heads Multi-Culture, at the Hartlepool City Art Gallery. In 2005 he had another one-man exhibition, We Are Here, at The Herbert, Coventry City Art Gallery. In 2006 he exhibited twenty-eight Giant Heads in Bury City Art Gallery In an Exhibition called Facing Yourself.
"My tree drawings and paintings I made last year that culminated in large 3 metre contemporary paintings, that are about nature meeting the city, the urban jungle and climate change," Nahem Shoa
Nahem Shoa's paintings are in international, public and private collections. see ACQUISITIONS
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BACK IMAGINATIVE PAINTINGS
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