Solomon Karmel-Shann: SOLOMON and GRACE 

Solomon Karmel-Shann, Solomon and Grace series, Oil on canvas, $500 each.

Solomon and Grace is a series of portraits that capture small, intimate moments shared between two people whose lives are deeply intertwined.

Shown the window gallery October 2025.

Enquiries info@civicartbureau.com

Grace and I live together, see each other every day, talk every day. She shapes who I am, just as I shape her. These paintings are not just of her, or of me, but of us. They’re glimpses into a shared life.

Each portrait holds a fleeting moment, an expression, a glance, a quiet in-between. These moments often pass unnoticed, but painting them allows me to pause and really see them. In freezing them, I’m able to fixate into their emotional weight, their subtlety, and their intimacy.

The paintings are bordered, almost like windows, frames within frames, which reflect how I see these moments: as private scenes quietly observed. They are almost nosey. It reminds me of people-watching, of wondering what someone else is thinking or feeling in a single, unspoken moment. Only here, the subject is someone I know deeply, and yet I’m still discovering new things in her.

That’s why I return to these moments. They’re small, but they hold everything. In a world that feels increasingly uncertain, when the news feels heavy and the future unclear, I feel an urge to hold on tightly to the things that ground me. These moments, though brief, are precious. I paint them to keep them. I paint them because I know one day, I might miss them.

– Solomon Karmel-Shann