Artist Statment
Shaiya Isabella Sayani's paintings and prints explore the intersection of race and technology. Her process begins by contemplating foreign bodies and their interactions in various spaces. She then creates visually stimulating artworks, using her family or friends as subjects. Recently, she has delved into the historical significance of photography to inform how she paints bodies of colour. Through examining the neglect in accurately capturing figures of colour within photographic traditions, she utilizes this biased lens to depict herself and her family in abstracted ways. Shaiya offers a unique connection between colour theory and skin by breaking away from the reliance on traditional skin tones.
Shaiya's painting process integrates technological manipulation to distort figures and skin. Photographs are a crucial aspect of her work, where subtle qualities are captured and experimented with through a variety of mediums. In her paintings, Shaiya relies on intuition to transform colour, while in printmaking, she harnesses the strengths of techniques like woodblock or halftone to morph the visibility of the figure. This approach creates works that are both dynamic and encapsulate the stillness of a single moment in time.
Bio.
Shaiya Sayani was born in Vancouver, Canada, and currently lives and studies in Boston at Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She is of Indian-African descent and her family immigrated to Canada from Uganda in the 1970s. Due to her unique cultural background, her work brings a distinctive perspective to contemporary art. Her exploration includes how bodies of colour move through and experience space, offering insightful commentary on belonging, race, and gender.
