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Ajea Zahid

@zahidajea

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With the RCA Grad Show coming to an end I want to extend my gratitude to everyone who came to experience the show and took something from it (postcards ?¿)

I’m also beyond honoured (and still slightly in disbelief) to have been recognised with the Valerie Beston Award 2026

I want to express my gratitude to the trustees of the award and @pilar.ordovas for granting me the opportunity to continue learning and growing. To @elizabethgreenshieldsfdn for supporting my RCA journey and my thanks also extends to @jawad_zia_rosemine and @irfan.gul.dahri for believing in me through and through

A special thank you to the RCA tutors whose guidance and encouragement have shaped this experience in countless ways. And to everyone in the RCA cohort: what a group. It’s been a privilege to spend my time surrounded by so much talent

Here’s to everyone who has ever supported me in any big or small way 🥂 taken in Royal College of Art by @zahidajea

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a month ago

Kicking off with the Private View tonight,

See you around the next couple of days, find me on the ground floor of the main painting building at Rca

The Regulars
Oil on canvas
270 x 120 x 4 cm by @zahidajea

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a month ago

Introducing Ajea Zahid (b.2000) @zahidajea is a Pakistani painter from Lahore, based in London. Her work has also been recognised by the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation @elizabethgreenshieldsfdn

Ajea’s practice is rooted in observation, and the experience of displacement. Her paintings emerge from an encounter. Think of an elderly couple waiting at a bus stop, a group of lonely smokers by the river or something left on the corner of a wall as you turn the street. Fragments of everyday life where meaning is suggested but never fixed. The figure operates as a central site through which she explores emotional and psychological tensions.

“I approach the figure not as an idealised subject but as a place of contradiction, tender and brutal, rational and impulsive. It is an ongoing study of people, driven by curiosity about human behaviour and a recognition that we are capable of both the most beautiful and the most difficult things”

Artwork list:

1. Swampy Afternoon, 2025. Oil on Wood, 21 x 16 cm

2. They’ve All Waited for Something That Never Happened, 2025. Oil on Canvas, 184 x 42 cm

3. They’ve All Waited for Something That Never Happened, 2025. Oil on Canvas, 184 x 42 cm (Detailed Shot)

4. Conductor, 2026. Contè on Paper, 2026. 15 x 6 cm by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

Install shot at Underbelly

Woes of Their Lives, 2025
61 x 51 cm
Oil on canvas

By appointment only:
11th April – 26th April 2026
44 Great Russell St, WC1B 3JL, London

Work Enquiries:
Jason via email or whatsapp:
Hello@subtitlelabs.com
+447710347437 taken in Bloomsbury, London by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

Install shots at Underbelly

In her own words, Ajea discusses the show in more detail:

“My work here grew from encounters. People I’ve seen and met, objects picked up and held. These are the textures and smells of being in a new place. Taking notice of what easily passes by. A face on a bus, something left on a wall or a lonely smoker.

The small, often overlooked interactions that reveal something fragile about human connection.

A few of the paintings rest on small wooden shelves. These were found whilst wandering through London. The wood is reclaimed from The Golden Hind, Sir Walter Raleigh’s reconstructed galleon. This is a vessel with its own history of movement and travel.

It’s story was told to me by a stranger, found through conversation and chance, now holding something of mine in return”.

By appointment only:
11th April – 26th April 2026
44 Great Russell St, WC1B 3JL, London

Work Enquiries:
Jason via email or whatsapp:
Hello@subtitlelabs.com
+447710347437 taken in Bloomsbury, London by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

Ajea Zahid
One Last Smoke, 2026
130 x 110 cm
Oil on canvas

One of our favourite works from Underbelly, Ajea’s first solo exhibition in London.

Work enquiries - Jason:
+447710347437
Hello@subtitlelabs.com taken in Bloomsbury, London by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

Swampy Afternoon
21 x 16 (cm)
Oil on wood

On display at @subtitlelabs catch the show while it’s still up by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

What a fun little evening yesterday!

Thank you to everyone who came by! For the conversations, the laughs, had a nice couple of drinks, and enjoyed engaging with the work. So cool to meet everyone!

Now that that’s done with, time to hermit back into the studio

The show stays open till the 26th by appointment at @subtitlelabs 44 Great Russell Street by @zahidajea

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3 months ago

Started out yesterday by stressing out at 4am wether we’ll make the train in time but the impromptu trip to Edinburgh turned out to be such a beautiful experience,

Thought about all the artists who walked through the city, lived and created there, found a lot of inspiration in the architecture, the people and in the little tucked in alley ways. This will definitely remain as one of my favourite romanticised places taken in Edinburgh, Scotland by @zahidajea

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4 months ago

We are delighted to present Underbelly, a solo exhibition by Ajea Zahid, our second exhibition in our new permanent space in Bloomsbury.

Ajea Zahid (b.2000. Karachi) is from Lahore, Pakistan and moved to London in 2025. Ajea graduated from the National College of Arts, Lahore and is currently pursuing her MA in painting at the Royal College of Art.

The work centres on the intimacy of the human condition. She works from observations and memory to construct figures that sit somewhere between the deeply familiar and the unknowable. Using the visual language of drawing and painting, her surfaces attempt to locate an emotional truth in the way people exist among, and in relation to one another.

From an early age, her constant relocations meant renegotiating internal ideas of home and belonging. She learned to observe people and places she knew would be temporary. In many ways, painting has become a way to hold onto the transient, to slow down the act of seeing, and to make sense of impermanence.

Underbelly, is exactly that, with an even more zoomed in lens of her raw surroundings. It is an exhibition rooted in unfamiliarity, taking the transient and making it permanent in a visual form. Having never left Pakistan previously, Underbelly provides the audience with Ajea’s unique exposure to London, its gritty and pristine parallels and the people that inhabit the city. The beauty in her work lies in the obvious, the delicate nature in which she portrays emotions and the blindingly obvious environments that we often fail to observe.

Please join us for our private view on the 11th April at 4:30pm at 44 Great Russell St, WC1B 3JL

By appointment only:
11th April – 26th April 2026
44 Great Russell St, WC1B 3JL, London

Work Enquiries:
Jason via email or whatsapp:
Hello@subtitlelabs.com
+447710347437 taken in Bloomsbury, London by @zahidajea

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4 months ago

Stranger
Oil on Canvas

Opening tonight for a group show ‘The Drunken boat’ at @haricotgallery

205 Royal College Street

See you around if you’re out and about! by @zahidajea

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4 months ago

People, places, and things that’ve made it feel lighter lately by @zahidajea

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4 months ago