Shelby Seu is a Canadian artist who paints hyperreal, symbolist portraits that reflect the intimate connection she fosters with her subject matter. Her oil paintings act as a mode of personal inquiry into how we view our existence, our relationship to the world, and the passage of time.

Her large-scale portraits depict herself and people of significance to her, forever held in the intimate and vulnerable setting of her gaze. The subjects are immersed in a dreamlike, unnamable space, alongside objects of different temporalities and often unique forms, collected over many years and holding the quality of artefacts. 

Through Shelby’s paintings, things are rendered fixed and unmovable, enveloped in the world she has created around them. Every element within a painting is equal and connected. Placing the chosen elements side by side amplifies them and translates their energy in a very particular sense; a subject or object can be seen and felt in a way that transcends our everyday experience of them. This unveils our connection to the more-than-human world and the cosmos, emphasising our relationships through composition and formal unity. For Shelby, paintings function as portals that pull the threads of our shared worlds together into a fabric of time, emotion, memory and connectivity. 

Receiving her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2011) and her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College (2015), Seu has participated in programmes at the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow, Yale University Norfolk and Central Saint Martins. 

Education

2015 Goldsmiths University, MFA Studio Practice

2011 Maryland Institute College of Art, BFA Painting

2010 Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, Fine Art

2010 Yale University at Norfolk, Fine Art

2009 Pratt Institute, Fine Art

Awards & Residencies

2022 Ikona Residency and Grant

2018 Ontario Emerging Artist Grant

2015 Gullkistan Resdiency, Laugarvatn, Iceland

2014 Kunstnarhuset Messen Residency, Alvik, Norway

2014 Goldsmiths/Moscow ICA Summer Scholarship

2013 Arteles Residency, Hämeenkyrö, Finland

2010 Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship – Yale University

2009 Merit Scholarship – Maryland Institute College of Art

2009 John Loys Honors Award in Painting – Pratt Institute

Selected Exhibitions

2022 Women: Art in Times of Chaos, de Pury (group exhibition)

2022 Tendencies in Painting, London Paint Club (group exhibition)

Lectures

2017 - 2018 Visiting Lecturer, Plymouth College of Art

2014 Artist Lecture, Muzeon Park, 4th Moscow International Biennale for Young

Art, Moscow, Russia

2014 Artist Lecture, Camberwell College of Arts

2012 Visiting Lecturer, Maryland Institute College of Art

2012 Artist Lecture, Pratt Institute

Publications & Words

2022 Tendencies in Painting, London Paint Club

Interview with Words With

2016 Looking at Painting