The WoW Women Project: Shaina Shah is Empowering Women Trailblazers Through Art & Storytelling
By Naisha Roy
“Every story has left an indelible mark on me. Whether it was about a Moroccan woman building an astronomical observatory on Antarctica or the one being the first Astrophysicist from Philippines or the youngest to summit the Everest from Nepal or a taekwondo gold medalist from Afghanistan, each story taught me something about courage, being a woman and creating something bigger than myself.” Today’s dreamer is Shaina Shah, an artist and chartered accountant working to share the stories of other female artists across the world. Shaina has trained in several forms of visual art for over 20 years, with exhibitions in countries ranging from Thailand to the UK. She founded her latest venture, the WOW Women Project, in 2020. It aims to bring together women artists from all 196 countries of the world and tell their stories through portraits and letters. Shah spoke to Women Who Win about her progress towards the project and some of the inspiring stories she uncovered along the way.
1. You held your first art exhibition at just nine years old. Did you always know that painting was your passion, or did you find your way back to it as an adult? Did you face any struggles in wanting to make art professionally, and how did you overcome them?
My mom says as a baby I started painting before I started talking. At age 5, I started studying art under my Guru and this continued for the next 20 years. I’ve been trained in pastels, water colour, inks, acrylics, oils, mixed mediums including sand, textures, gold-silver foiling, you name it. By age 9, I had an art show with 100+ art works. Since then and now I’ve had over 10 group and solo shows in prestigious galleries across the country. My paintings are a part of collections in countries like USA, UK, Thailand, China, Brazil and many more.
Painting for me is my interest, my passion, my hobby, my profession and the first and foremost love of my life. I still pick up a paintbrush before a tooth brush every morning. And I never stopped since I was 5. There is nothing that I look back upon in my journey of becoming an artist that feels like struggle to me. The only change now is that I get paid to paint. I still approach each work with the enthusiasm I had as a kid and can’t wait to dive deep into it. The only point that comes close to a challenge is that I did not choose to study the arts in university as I wanted to foray out into other subjects that made me a better artist. An absence of an arts degree was sometimes a roadblock in being recognized as an artist as well as getting an entry into art shows and galleries. However, thanks to social media, the need to exhibit reduced drastically and slowly this is not remaining a challenge anymore.
2. Your artwork features every style from realistic portraits to abstract pieces, and it covers a wide range of themes from human images to religious paintings. You've also worked in several mediums, including different kinds of paints and even film and videography. What are some tenets you follow when approaching any new artwork, regardless of medium, and where do you find inspiration before starting a new project?
My friends often tease me that I’m trying to use both sides of my brains simultaneously – being a chartered accountant and an artist. I think this shows itself in my art as well – abstracts are fluid, seamless, and without structure, whereas portraits are structured and have a built-in math. I think I’m drawn to both sides of art – fluid and limitless and structured and mathematical. My love for painting translated itself into films at a point. A film is nothing but a serious of paintings projected onto a wall. But at the root of all of this is my need to express myself in various ways that words can’t. I have an endless supply of stories I want to tell within me and the visual arts are how it comes through.
I have never looked for inspiration. It simply flows through me. I think my arts are a way of a higher power making its presence felt to me and I simply allow this light to flow through. In the last 30 years, there would be very few days where I have not worked with paints, the pen or the camera.
Project Cover Photo - The WoW Women Project
3. The WOW Women Project aims to highlight the stories of unique women from all 196 countries in the world, which is a massive undertaking. What was the moment that pushed you to start the project, and where in the journey are you at now?
I grew up in a fairly gender neutral home where my roles were not defined. After university, when I got into the real world, I realized that’s not how the world functions. With time, many of my women contemporaries stepped back and gave up on their dreams from a lack of choice. Soon enough when I wanted to discuss business problems or HR issues or juggling time between home and dreams, I hardly had women to turn to.
This was a very lonely moment for me and I set out on a search for women who had lived lives full of breaking rules and done something spectacular for the world. I looked across the world and found many. I wanted to write about them and tell their stories. I consider my ability to make hyper realistic portraits as my most precious gift and what better than to create portraits of these women to tell their stories. This gave rise to the WOW Project. Many friends joined me on this journey to help me bring this project to life and we’ve covered about 30% of the planet so far.
4. Are there any portraits, stories, and women that you've found through the WOW project that left a large impression on you? What made these women stand out to you?
Every story has left an indelible mark on me. Whether it was about a Moroccan woman building an astronomical observatory on Antarctica or the one being the first Astrophysicist from Philippines or the youngest to summit the Everest from Nepal or a taekwondo gold medalist from Afghanistan, each story taught me something about courage, being a woman and creating something bigger than myself.
What stood out about these women is simply their courage – they did not let people, circumstances, problems, and lack of resources stop them. They found a way. Today’s women are redefining what it means to be a woman and these women are out there doing that by simply living their life. This is why I bring their stories to light.
5. While juggling so many projects and initiatives, life can feel a bit overwhelming. What do you do to get yourself out of artistic slumps and to make sure you maintain balance?
I follow a simple rule that I learnt from one of my favorite writers, Brene Browne: one can juggle many balls in the air – some are made of glass and some of rubber. You will drop a few over the course of time, but you can choose which ones. If you drop the ones of glass, they shatter and can’t be put back together. But the ones of rubber bounce back. So when I feel overwhelmed, I simply choose the rubber balls that I can let drop and simply let go until I’m ready to pick them up again. This translates into having very clear priorities, good time management skills and the ability to rest and recover. I make sure to have time for my family, my friends, my pets and my hobbies (sports) – they’re my glass balls in the air – and make sure I don’t drop them. Everything else, bounces back.
I do get into artistic slumps and feel stuck and unable to bring forth the required works. I adopt two approaches – ONE: I use rest. Sleep, remove schedules, do yoga, detox my body, go into a soft and slow time. TWO: I use discipline. If I find that I have become a slave to my ‘’moods,’’ I use discipline as a way to get onto the art table/writing desk and just put in the time there, and more often than not, it works. I apply both methods and break the cycle.