By KARI MUTU

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Working in acrylic, oil and soft pastel, Sujay Shah juxtaposes seemingly unrelated man-made objects with organic materials to tell a narrative in jarring, yet intriguing fashion. A collection of his satirised paintings that critiques our colonial history featured earlier this year at an exhibition titled Forgive us our skins, at the Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi.

His pictures are filled with Victorian-era furniture, cabinets, antelopes, piano, vases, lion-skin rugs, chandeliers, stylised monkeys, crocodiles, people in yoga-like poses, paraffin lamps, teacups and more. Some of the vintage objects he paints are items he saw in his grandmother’s house, and which “hold these very British ideals of civility and civilisation,” he said.

How one savours Shah’s paintings is not clear-cut or easy because of the vibrant colours and randomly placed objects that have a diorama quality, like exhibits in a museum.

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They add complexity and fantasy to his pictures, drawing the viewer back time and again.

While studying in the US he came across the actual remains of the Tsavo lions, taxidermied and displayed at the Field Museum of Chicago.

“I was shocked at how they were depicted, living on as these playful, docile creatures,” said Shah.

The experience inspired reflections about European expeditions to Africa, the legacies of colonialism and how a country is depicted by outsiders. Shah exposes the exploitative and disrespectful nature of sport hunting, where majestic lions are turned into carpets and wall hangings like a “ridiculing of Kenya.”

“I grew up with the Jain philosophy of treating everything with respect and to tread on ground very reverently and softly,” said Shah.
There is both humour and horror in his paintings, but ultimately, he imparts on his animals some agency and retribution, making them portends of future man-made catastrophes in a type of role reversal.

Some paintings seem fleeting and semi-real -- such as the gazelles running through a rose-coloured landscape of "In great reserves".

Others are more figurative and sardonic, like "Field guides: Passage into the interior." Here, a blond-haired lion stands with paws on a table, looking at the skin of a dead, red-maned lion. Shah acknowledges sometimes feeling the tension of the very constructed displays at museums versus the unrestricted way he naturally paints.

Shah paints unsystematically, working on several pieces at a time which, he says, removes the pressure of creating that one perfect piece.

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One of Shah's biggest influences is the Danish artist Tal R, known for his highly colourful palette.

“It really upsets the visual balance and can trip you up, side-track you, lead you in specific ways, and makes the work more complex.”

Shah’s illustrations from 10 years back are more austere and rendered in minimal colours, “because we associate seriousness with greys and black and monochrome,” he said. The latter use of flamboyant colours and “going against whiteness gives the dioramas a different mood,” he said.

It has taken much adjusting, trials and tribulations for him to feel that his work is more connected to the place he lives. Even with a ‘bad painting’, he will try to find a redeeming quality or put it aside for a few weeks, and get lost in the zone of something else.

Ultimately, a painting is done when everything feels loved into place, when he can’t enter or place a new objective and “it feels like it doesn’t need me anymore,” said Shah.