Shelina Khimji is an award winning Tanzanian born artist and a qualified accountant, a self-taught artist drawn to art since her childhood. Over a decade long career, she has been featured on CNN style for her lockdown artwork submitted to a Dubai based Art Studio. She has exhibited in World Art Dubai 2020 as the only Tanzanian artist, and was featured in The National UAE and Art & Lusso Magazine. Modern Renaissance, a online magazine have also featured her profile and artworks in one of their issues as well as The Citizen Tanzania for participating in the Rotaracts, Colours Of Hope Exhibition. She has been selected as the female Tanzanian ambassador to participate in an exhibition titled, Art Connects Women organized by the Zee Arts Gallery in Dubai.

 

She has also  been a regular participant in the East African Art Biennale, a two time finalist in the New York and Los Angeles Coffee Art Project, a mentor and award winner at her local community art events, while her sketchbook has toured USA and Canada for being a participant in the sketchbook project.

Colour and impressionism is her powerful symbolism as it reflects her happy persona and her ideal world imagery. She believes art has allowed her to dip her brush into her soul and paint away her fantasies. The imaginary places and dreams that she expresses on the canvas permit her to lose herself and fulfil her inner longings by bringing them alive in a painting. She loves to do challenging concepts that give her a sense of achievement. She also has a natural knack for drawing and her style includes sketches, abstracts, impressionism, portraits and figurative art and perspective art as long as she can portray impressionism in them. She mostly uses charcoal, oil and acrylics.

She loves giving an inkling to evoke her viewers emotions and imagination to her artworks. Her style therefore tends to be impressionistic

She loves to depict the old and the ancient look and evoking nostalgia and romantic feelings in her artworks by the misty effect she gives. She tries to capture her fantasies, a memory, a thought, a longing, the glimpse of the world through rose tinted glasses, underprivileged people and typical narrow streets. 

​Her paintings have fresh, bright and soothing tones giving a tranquil and cheerful mood to her work due to her idealistic and serene personality.

She has a rich African and Arabian background since she grew up in Tanzania and inherited the Zanzibari upbringing from her parents. She has also lived in Britain, USA and UAE. This combination tends to stand out in her work with the colours and layers highlighting her identity.

Her strength lies in the contemporary feel she has given to Tanzanian art as well as how she lets her art speak for the values she holds when it comes to the preserving the environment and recognising the less privileged.

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