Shailee Mehta India, b. 1998
Shailee Mehta's artistic practice stems from an ongoing dialogue between a personal space of imagination and nostalgia, and the weaving of history, memory and contemporary society. Working extensively with elements of figuration and embodiment, she situates the female body as a central agential subject in her explorations around femininity and visibility. Her work is descriptive of a poetics of space where elements of the interior and the exterior blend into each other: hence her protagonists are placed in domestic settings and yet their features, colours and forms merge with their natural environment, giving them an unsettling ‘untamed’ appearance. Rooted in the female gaze, her female figures subvert patriarchal tropes, and the narratives of looking and being looked at take up multiple meanings such as desire, contemplation or rejection.
Shailee Mehta completed her Foundation Diploma from the University of the Arts London (UAL) in 2015 and her BFA at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2020.
Her most recent solo show was In The Belly of A Slovenly Crow, The Residence Gallery, London (2020). She has been part of various group shows including A Small Dent in the Air, Grove Collective, London (2021); All Is Not Lost 20:20:20, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai (2020); The (Grad) Show Must Go On, AucArt Exhibition and Sale (2020); AIRGENTUM, Hoja de Ruta Residency, Spain (2018) and Stomach, Hoxton Arches Gallery, London (2017).
Mehta currently lives and works in Mumbai.
