Shakil Solanki

Shakil Solanki (b. 1997) was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He completed his undergraduate degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2019 and is currently based in Cape Town, practicing as an artist, working primarily within the mediums of painting and printmaking.

Since 2018, he has taken part in several group shows- both locally and internationally, including two solo presentations with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery, as well as a show at Everard Read Cape Town.

Recent collaborations comprise the set design of Cape Town Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s ‘The Pearl Fishers’, and a residency at Twee Jonge Gezellen wine farm in Tulbagh.

His international art fairs include Also Known As Africa (AKAA) Paris, 1.54 London, and Investec Cape Town Art Fair.

Solanki interrogates the dynamics of queer intimacy, using the space of a secret garden to explore dualities of tenderness, desire, and violence.

His experiences as an Indian man remain central to his practice, with classical Eastern art standing as a prominent source of inspiration.

This vernacular is repurposed, encompassing homoerotic dialogues to evoke lush, dreamlike lands, which remain both romantic and discomforting at once.

The trope of a secret garden is used as a liminal space, where contrasting emotions of trauma and longing exist hand-in-hand with moments of stillness, using the theme of intimacy as a point of convergence to explore its many dynamics, evoked within many nocturnal shades of blue. In tandem, he presents contemplations on the conditions of the diasporic South Asian queer individual; building subversive mythologies, regal identities, and poignant celebrations.