page_title: Nahem Shoa
section_title: Exhibitions in detail: 2004–2014
hierarchical_section_title: Nahem Shoa / Exhibitions in detail: 2004–2014
caption_attribution_description: English: Wall of Nahem Shoa's Giant Head paintings, including his self portrait.
context_page_description: Nahem Shoa is a contemporary London painter best known for his series of portraits, collectively called Giant Heads, which were painted at up to 15 times life size. He is also notable for having increased the number of portraits of Black and mixed-race British people on display in British museums. Shoa has won a number of awards and prizes for his work, and serves on The Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery's Contemporary Arts Panel. His work has been exhibited in London's National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy as well as at galleries and museums in other parts of the UK.
context_section_description: In 2004, Nahem Shoa had two large-scale, one-man shows in regional art galleries: Youth Culture Multi Culture at Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum, and Giant Heads & Multi-Culture at the Hartlepool Art Gallery. The exhibition at Plymouth City Gallery included 16 paintings from the "Giant Heads" series, and another 40 large-format portraits, and also included a display of works inspired by Shoa's portraits.
  In 2005, his solo exhibition We Are Here, at The Herbert, Coventry City Art Gallery, featured giant portraits of ten Black and multiracial models as part of the gallery's observance of Black History Month. These solo shows in 2004 and 2005 broke previous attendance records at each gallery.
  In 2006, Shoa's work was included in an exhibition he curated at Hartlepool Art Gallery, alongside paintings by Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Robert Lenkiewicz.
  Also in 2006, Shoa had a solo exhibition titled Facing Yourself at Bury Art Gallery. Facing Yourself exhibited 25 oil paintings of people of varying ethnic backgrounds, including both Black and mixed-race subjects. The heads were 15 times larger than life, eliciting this reaction from Culture24 art critic Kay Carson: "[D]espite the grandiose scale, the mood is quite the opposite: muted, dignified and very personal."
  In 2007, he featured in the group exhibition True To Life at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, with his work alongside that of fellow Realist painters Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Lucian Freud, and Robert Lenkiewicz.
  In April and May 2010, Shoa's Giant Head of Ben was included in In Thy Face I See, a group show at Hartlepool Art Gallery focused on portraiture.
  In 2013, Shoa contributed drawings for a group exhibition for the House of the Nobleman group exhibition Paper Vernacular: Drawings & Constructions, part of the Cutlog art festival in New York.
  In April 2014, his Giant Head of Ben was shown alongside Lucian Freud's Head of a Woman as part of the exhibition Face to Face: Portraits Past and Present at Hartlepool Art Gallery.
caption: A view of nine of the portraits shown as part of Facing Yourself, including a self-portrait and Giant Head of Desiree (first and second from the right)
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