Vijay Shahi

About the artist

Artist Biography

I am a self-taught artist who began painting at the age of six. My journey has been largely independent and instinctive, shaped by years of observation, experimentation, practice, and a continual desire to learn and refine my craft.

I have never followed a conventional academic or exhibition-driven path. My work has instead evolved through a personal process of looking, studying, painting, making mistakes, and beginning again. Over time, this has led me towards a visual language of my own—one that is still evolving, but increasingly recognisable as mine.

My influences are deliberately eclectic. I am deeply drawn to the spirit of the Impressionists and their founding generation: artists who challenged established conventions, worked outside the accepted structures of their time, and sought new ways of seeing. That spirit of independence continues to resonate with me. I have also been inspired by the Old Masters and Renaissance painters, as well as artists such as Vermeer and Gainsborough, and later by Gauguin and Picasso.

My understanding of art has also grown through discovering and revisiting the rich traditions of Indian painting. Artists such as Raja Ravi Varma and M. F. Husain have influenced my thinking, alongside the very different visual language of Frida Kahlo and many others across cultures and periods.

Rather than belonging to one particular school or tradition, I see my practice as a conversation between these influences and my own experience

Artist Statement

Painting has been a part of my life since I was six years old. I came to art without a formal academic path, and my practice has grown through observation, experimentation, self-learning and an instinctive need to keep painting.

My work is influenced by an eclectic history of looking. I find myself equally drawn to the discipline and observation of the Old Masters, the light and immediacy of the Impressionists, the freedom of artists such as Gauguin and Picasso, and the deeply personal visual worlds of artists such as Frida Kahlo. My engagement with Indian art has further expanded this vocabulary, particularly through artists such as Raja Ravi Varma and M. F. Husain.

What connects these otherwise very different influences for me is not a particular style, but a way of seeing: the willingness to observe closely, question convention, and transform what is seen through an individual sensibility.

I am interested in the space between reality and interpretation—how light, colour, gesture, texture and memory can alter the way we experience a person, a place or an idea. I do not want to reproduce reality literally; I want to discover what happens when observation passes through my own imagination and experience.

My practice is still evolving. Each painting is both an exploration and a conversation with everything I have seen, learned and felt before it. My aim is not to belong to a particular school, I am your quintessential starving artist - very literally.