Suhaylah H.

Painting | Drawing

Though dabbling in everything from figuration to total abstraction, Suhaylah H is consistently drawn back to landscapes as a means of exploring the connection between material and immaterial worlds. Her studies in Environmental Geography and Comparative Literature at university fuelled her obsession with the intersection of landscape and symbolism.

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Suhaylah is fond of the term dreamscapes frequently given to her art, especially as she often references scenes or ideas from her dreams. Yet she strives for a perhaps paradoxical lucidity she thinks is necessary to make the ethereal believable:

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"It’s a funny thing to draw shapes that exude a passion for movement while inevitably betraying their own stillness by virtue of being flat. In the end, it’s about being able to look at an image thinking you’re forever on the cusp of something you can’t quite reach, nevertheless being utterly encompassed, allowing yourself to experience whatever it is that occurs when the supposed boundaries of all things corporeal and intangible vanish." 

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Birds that aren’t birds, trees that hang down to transform into pools of water, rocks whose reflections are more real than they are, phantoms that connect your eyes to the plants.

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The gestures and materials Suhaylah uses in drawing & painting go a long way to maintaining this state of mind/space. It's a subtle creative balance, using the immediacy and density of oil pastels to bring about something ruminative and fluid.

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BIO

Suhaylah H. (born 1993) graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts (Major in Environmental Geography, Minor in Comparative Literature) at King's College, London in 2017, and an MA in Comparative Literature at King's College, London in 2019. Suhaylah currently lives and works in Ely, UK. Suhaylah, a self-taught artist, has exhibited her work in both the UK and the US since 2021. Suhaylah has contributed works to group exhibitions with BWG Gallery (2021, 2022), HdM Gallery (2022), the Auction Collective (2022), Salon 21 (2023), Liliya Gallery (2024) and recently released her first Limited Edition Print with the V&A in Spring 2024. Suhaylah has also featured work in two Partnership Editions collections (2022, 2023). Suhaylah held her first solo exhibition Apparitions with BWG Gallery in Spring 2022, and her second solo exhibition with Pilgrim’s Contemporary in Spring 2023. The Spell, The Plot, & The Ether was Suhaylah’s second solo exhibition with BWG Gallery in Autumn 2023. Suhaylah has mulitple works in the Corrirdor Foundation Collection, and has an upcoming show with WOAW Gallery, Singapore (Autumn 2024).