Art Forum: Dr Shanti Shea-An

Life after Art School
Dr Shanti Shea-An

Shanti Shea An is an artist based on Gadigal Country/​Sydney. In 2016, she completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) at the ANU School of Art & Design in Canberra. In this presentation, she reflects on the past ten years since finishing art school, a period marked by continued experimentation in the studio, exhibitions, travel, as well as going back to university to study art history before completing a practice-led PhD in 2024. 

Shea An’s practice explores how images are read, translated, and transformed through the process of painting. She works with source material drawn from mass media, art history, and personal photography, layering these visual languages to reflect on ambiguity, interruption, and the instability of meaning. Recent solo exhibitions include Split screen, double vision (Velvet Lobster, Sydney, 2025) and The world folding in upon itself (ANCA Gallery, Canberra, 2023). She has exhibited in group shows across Australia, China, and France, including The Room: Our Landscape Interior (MARS Gallery, Melbourne, 2025), Tapestry (Tiles Lewisham, Sydney, 2025), and Folded Memories (Galerie Elsa Meunier — Galerie Mathilde le Coz, Paris, 2024). Her next solo exhibition will be held at Velvet Lobster in May 2026.