Characterised by a logic of accumulation and inheritance, Khilji’s paintings contend with the indeterminate nature of memory and the passing of time. Working on linen, found book covers and used cigarette packets, he treats recollection as provisional and composite, always subject to interference.
The London-based artist uses a subdued, earthy palette, and his deft handling of semi-translucent washes of pigment allows both figure and setting to resist sharp delineation. For Khilji, the practice is 'like excavating something' – uncovering the latent content of a lived experience, a found photograph, a gestural memory or an imagined situation.1 His subjects are uncanny composites, drawn from multiple sources such as sketches of strangers or images of writers and filmmakers that inspire him. Fragments of Nastaliq calligraphy surface within several works, functioning less as legible inscription than as lyrically rippling form – speaking to intergenerational transmission that language engenders. Each painting carries the grammar of a story, an implied before and after, its resolution withheld.
Khilji's introduction to painting in his formative years came by way of the cinema hoardings affixed to the back of rickshaws, which he saw on his commute to school in Quetta. ‘Those paintings were like moving galleries for me,’ the artist recalls.2 A later experience shaped his relationship to material: during his school days, he noted the cumulative effect of scratches and scuffs that the covers of his exercise books sustained throughout the year and was compelled to use these inadvertent marks as the basis of a composition. This instinct to use surfaces that already hold a dormant image persists in his works comprising book covers and cigarette packets as their grounds.
Suleman Aqeel Khilji (b. 1985, Quetta, Pakistan) lives and works in London. In 2011, he received a BA in Painting from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. In 2025 he graduated from Royal Academy Schools, London. He is currently a permanent member of the teaching faculty at the National College of Arts, Lahore.
Selected solo exhibitions include Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK (2026); White Cube, Paris (2026); STANDARD, Oslo (2025 and 2026); The Radley Mews with Jhaveri Contemporary, London (2023); Weston Studio, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2022); DOMINION Art Gallery, Lahore (2022); and Vasl Artist Residency, IVS Gallery, Karachi, Pakistan (2018). Selected group exhibitions include Arts Council Collection, Christie’s, London (2026); Drawing Room, London (2024 and 2026); CONDO, London hosted by The Sunday Painter, London (2026); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2024); St James’s Church, London (2023); No. 9 Cork Street / Jhaveri Contemporary, London (2023); Subtitle Lab, London (2023); Dolomiti Contemporanee, Dolomites, Italy (2023); Gesso Art Space, Vienna (2023); Satrang Gallery, Islamabad (2021); Aicon Gallery, New York (2018); Rossi & Rossi, Art Divvy Project, London (2018); and École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2009).
His work is held in numerous public collections, including Arts Council Collection, UK; Kistefos Museum and Astrup Fearnley Museum, Norway; Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Como Museum of Art, Lahore, Pakistan; DIL Foundation, New York and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi among others. He was honoured with the prestigious Edna Rose Weiss Award at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2023, and has participated in the Vasl Teaching Artist Residency, Karachi, Pakistan (2016), Mansion Artist Residency, Lahore (2021), Edvard Munch Studio Foundation Residency (2025) and in 2026 he was appointed artist-in-residence at Eton College, Berkshire, UK.
1 Artist conversation, unpublished, April 2026
2 Artist in conversation with Hammad Nasar, White Cube Paris, June 2026
