Washington, D.C. – Morton Fine Art is pleased to announce The Unseen, a solo exhibition of painting and works on paper by Nairobi-based visual artist Prina Shah. Underpinned by a practice of internal reflection and meditation, Shah’s works revolve around a constellation of influences and techniques. Reflecting on the lasting effects of political, social and economic instability and her own personal experience of being raised across cultures, Shah limns the inward path of art towards healing and transformation. Formed of concentrate rings (of paint, ink, graphite and found material), which Shah exactingly builds layer by layer, the resulting circular works resemble a disc, a portal, an aperture. Inspiration and outcomes often mirror one another in Shah’s practice: products of attention, they request yours; the result of meditation, they encourage deep-focused engagement. The artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and first solo exhibition in the United States, The Unseen, will be on view from March 20 – April 17, 2024at Morton Fine Art’s Washington, D.C. space (52 O St NW #302). An opening reception will be held Saturday, March 23, 2024 from 2-4pm.
Shah’s exhibition brings together the titular, large-scale The Unseen series (43 x 43 in.) alongside smaller works on canvas (Power and Pause series) and works on paper pieces (Inner Whispers series). Channeling a different type and center of energy, each work in the The Unseen series functions as a numinous impression of sorts, charting that energy’s pathway towards a gateway that Shah identifies as a “subtle body.” In Shah’s usage, the subtle body is a portal that connects and influences the separate spaces of the body, mind and spirit. Shah’s work reflects her intimate and articulated knowledge of the customs and practices of her Indian heritage. Often created in tandem with meditation and mantra practices, The Unseen works are projections of contemplation and, ultimately, healing—for both the artist and the viewer. Further still, the artworks’ titles (I Am, I Do, I Know, I Love, I See) add another mirroring layer in Shah’s cycle of intention, inspiration, form and address. Like most of Shah’s work, The Unseen series dually work as record and instruction: a documentation of internal exploration and a hopeful pathway for others to take towards enhanced human consciousness.
A flowing, almost paradoxical sense of stillness, progression and emergence pervade the works. Composed of colorful bands, lines and/or scrolling “text”, the works speak by different forms and colors. I Love (2023) excludes red marks and washes. Threaded with yellow, the lemony line in I Do (2023) may be taken for an radiant unbroken passage written out in luxuriant cursive.
Examples from the Power and Pause series take a more open path, forming a lighter weave than the denser, many-ringed The Unseen works. Executed in flowing ink and pen, the Inner Whispers works evoke a whirling example of surrealist automatic writing. And like automatic writing, efforts
to read Shah’s line as “text,” will not result in any fixed meaning or message, but rather a field of intentions and interpretations.
A master at weaving color and form in her extraordinarily detailed works, the artist brings a similar rigor and curiosity to how she positions and attunes her works. “Excavating the ‘dent’ from ‘Identity’,” Shah explains, “I focus on the ‘I’ as an infinite entity where all experiences occur and recur…I use the circle as the all- perceiving eye.” Punning and deconstructive, the observation is indication of the artist’s interest in the part and whole, the whole in the part, the part of the whole and the whole of the part.
Encouraging an exploratory unraveling, Shah invites the audience to consider the way they perceive their own environment (both internal and external) and to ponder the possibilities of spaces and escape those musings can generate.
Prina Shah (b. 1973, Kenya) is a contemporary artist currently living in Nairobi, Kenya. Born in Kenya to Indian parents, Shah also grew up partially in the U.K.; her artistic work embraces the indeterminacy of her national identity, including a fascination with the formation of selhood as it relates to a specific cultural context. In a creative practice spanning mixed media – including sculpture, painting, and glasswork – Shah’s art challenges the notions of individualized identity within a communal whole. Shah uses meditation as the impetus and foundation of her work, drawing the viewer into a personal narrative and inviting the participant to share in her visual journey of interconnection as she explores what it means to be one among many.
Shah’s work has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions and has been acquired by the permanent collections of Finland’s Poikilo Kouvola Art Museum, Asian Development Bank and the I&M Bank Collective in Kenya, as well as numerous private collections.
Morton Fine Art
Founded in 2010 in Washington D.C. by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can be cultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to
museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellar roster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus on artwork of the African and Global Diaspora.