Artist Nahem Shoa overcomes racism to showcase black portraits

An artist says he faces racism in the art world and has struggled to find galleries willing to display his portraits of black people.

However, Nahem Shoa, who is classically trained, said museums are increasingly open to showing images of non-white subjects.

The artist has an exhibition focusing on race and identity, which opens at Hull’s Ferens Art Gallery on Friday 18 October.

Mr Shoa said it was a “dream come true” that his work would be exhibited alongside artists such as Rembrandt and Lucian Freud.

Mr Shoa, from London, was a graffiti artist before training as a painter. The artist won the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Award in 1992 and exhibited his work at the National Portrait Gallery’s BP Portrait Award the following year.

He began painting his friends, but had difficulty getting the portraits displayed in galleries.

Some museums “didn’t even get back to me,” he said.

“It’s a project about race, but the project itself was influenced by a lot of racism, so it wasn’t released until recently,” he said.

Mr Shoa said the museum changed its attitude towards his work after the death of African-American George Floyd. Derek Chauvin was killed during arrest.

Following Mr Floyd’s death, protests spread around the world as part of the Black Lives Matter movement fighting for freedom, justice and equality.

As part of Black History Month, Hull City Council runs a number of events and exhibitions throughout October to celebrate black heritage.

The “Seen and Unseen” exhibition at Ferens Art Gallery also features work by Shoa’s childhood friend and fellow artist Desmond Haughton.

“Both Desmond and I tried to portray people of color as powerfully as Lucian Freud portrayed white people, so you can’t ignore them,” Mr. Shoa said.

“They are such powerful images,” he added, questioning: “Why are black images still so rare in art galleries?”

Mr Shoa said the art world had evolved and was getting better at promoting the work of minority artists.

“Right now,” he said, “there are some very famous artists of color at the top of the art world, and that needs to change.”

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