The Whitaker’s own collection has little representation of black or mixed-race people.  We are delighted that Nahem has loaned us one of his artworks to display during our series of portrait exhibitions and have paired it alongside one of our own portraits from our collection.  The choice of paintings, their position and relationship with each other, will offer an interesting narrative and add to the conversation as we reflect on our collection, who we represent in our artworks, and how we represent them.

Shoa studied Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic (1988-1991) before later completing postgraduate studies at The Royal Drawing School (2003-2004). Shoa was the recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshield’s Foundation award (1993-2001), and was the winner of the Royal Society Of Portrait Painters award (1992) and the Lord Leighton Prize (1992-93). Shoa’s exhibition Into The Light (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) was recently selected for the landmark publication The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting 3 (Anomie Publishing, 2024).