Sabrina Shah

Game Over?

And trust me, I have been playing the long game, here at the RCA, reaching new highs and new lows. I remember presenting work in containers as part of my learning during Covid, folders of inspiration, photos. Now it’s online.

During the LockDown there was a lot of commentary that we would ‘build back better’, a new normal. While everyone has their own story from the last three years, I haven’t seen this bright new dawn, but I have realised how much I took for granted before. I wasn’t content, yet things were much easier.

My early work was about greed, over-eating, eating disorders and never feeling full. But my work has been changing. I have lost some of the functioning in my hands through a series of abuses. I don’t want the pain to define me, but it has become my truth and for me painting has always been a mixture of my truth, my story and what I would like to see.

I took a break from my degree during Covid because in my heart I know painting is physical and tangible. I just felt too much expectation, greed and disappointment. It hurt me to take a leave of absence. I still belief that painting has to be seen/witnessed; this will not change, but as for being in the studio, the best studio, my own studio, friendship and peer group also matter. Sometimes in my work there is subconscious marks about cycles of power and abuse, the inevitable, the way our parents’ behaviour maybe haunting us.

Professional: I won the Castlegate prize for a painting about hope. I’m drawn to all things to do with mental health and aspiring to achieve our ultimate purpose. I was funded by the Leverhulme Trust for part of my degree and I have exhibited at The John Moores. I love painting. I love the way it is ok for things not to go together. I love the way it is ok do whatever you want.

Painting keeps me safe by allowing me to explore the unsafe places. Without thinking but with feeling.

Well played everyone. Play On?

In my paintings, subject and process are intimately connected and unmaking allows for slippage and collision–holding a mirror to contemporary culture’s aversion to imperfection by laying bare desire and tension. I'm interested in the history of the surface, while resisting a final finished surface.

The shadow of complex home environments and enmeshed cultures loom over my work, which explores the intractability of trauma in human relationships. My father is from Pakistan, my mother is Chinese.

Physical pain–and the unseen and unacknowledged centrality it wields over a female life–is embodied deeply within my practice. I find that fear–and the embrace of fear–increasingly figure in my paintings. Fear is the inevitable flip-side of pain, both a consequence and a warning. An acknowledgment of that fear is threaded through my work.

I am curious about people, animals, food, celebration and human behaviour. The trapped figures that populate my work are looking at those who are looking at them, searching for answers. I want my paintings to invite you to look, to really take a close and honest look.

Photograph: @joncarchdeacon