Krishi Shah (b.2000)

My practice investigates the sublime through the sensation of a landscape that dissolves the self. I construct  imagined spaces through memories, sensations and atmosphere.The paintings move in a rhythm between figuration and abstraction, where forms emerge, dissolve and remain deliberately unresolved. The horizon becomes a threshold of tension, a site of push and pull, where elements cross, merge, and resist containment. 

I work with watercolor and natural pigments on muslin whose translucency allows light and air to permeate the surface. I use the material to make the invisible perceptible, building atmosphere through layering, absorption, evaporation and sedimentation. Pigment and water accumulate, disperse and settle through variations in pressure and saturation, creating imagined whimsy,worlds, depth and luminosity. Light is developed from beneath the surface, emerging through spaces between layers. The surface itself becomes a record of time, movement and weathering.

Raised in Malabar Hill, Mumbai, my practice is shaped by atmospheric, ecological, and philosophical conditions of my upbringing. The monsoon and its cyclical transformations, where rain, wind, and atmosphere create moments of  renewal. Grounded in Jain philosophy, particularly vairagya (detachment) and reverence for unseen life in every droplet of water. My approach reflects a sensitivity to interdependence and restraint extending into both material and method.This tension between desire and necessity, comfort and consequence, informs my inquiry into what it truly means to be attuned to the world..  

Within a world driven by speed and accumulation, my work reflects on the tension between constructed human desire and the larger forces that exceed it. Shifting from a human-centred to a planetary lens, the paintings propose attunement over control, where detachment becomes a way of reconnecting with the elemental rhythms of the world.

Education 

  • MA, Painting, Royal College of Art, London, UK  (2025-26)

  • BFA, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, USA. (2018-22) 

Group Shows

  • MA Painting Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, 2026.

  • Lightly Lightly, Six Continuum curated by Salik Ansari, Mumbai, 2026

  • Extraterrestrial Tongue, Group Show, MAG Contemporary curated by Yash Vikram, New Delhi 2026.

  • Imagination and Imitation beyond Canvas, NewArtX curated by Manan Shah, 2025.