Artists

Shakil Solanki is a painter and printmaker born in Cape Town, where he currently resides. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2019, after which he received the Simon Gerson Award and the Katrine Harries Print Cabinet Award. Solanki draws inspiration from Eastern mythologies and artworks, particularly Hinduism. His intricate works utilise the characteristics of the secret garden to explore the dynamics of queer intimacy: lush, sensual, vulnerable, and intriguing. Blue is a dominant colour in his art, representing melancholy but also seduction.

Solanki has participated in residencies at the South Atlantic Press and the Krone x WHATIFTHEWORLD at Twee Yonge Gezellen in Tulbagh. He held his first solo show in late 2020 at WHATIFTHEWORLD. In 2023, Solanki produced a series of paintings used as set backdrops for the Cape Town Opera’s production of George Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. He has also collaborated on apparel with Fields Store and the L’Mad Collection x Latitudes Online.