Aphra Shemza is a UK-based multimedia artist. She is the granddaughter of the well-known abstract painter Anwar Jalal Shemza. Inspired by her grandfather, her work explores Modernism, her Islamic cultural heritage, sustainable practice and creating art for all. As an artist and activist, she finds ambitious ways to fuse methodologies from the past with new innovations in technology to imagine what the role of art could be in the future.

Shemza combines abstraction with traditional sculpting techniques and technology to create her work. As a sculptor her main medium is light, which she manipulates to create works that change over time. Handmade and bespoke interactive circuits are embedded within the pieces and this creates work which responds to the viewer or the space around it. Just as abstraction was said to be a ‘universal language for the masses’, Shemza has created a new visual language for a contemporary audience - one that explores the impact and legacy of technology on our world.

Shemza works in series. Each series has a different thematic exploration and a different aesthetic quality. From migration to climate change, Shemza explores many themes and ideas within her work and advocates for a sustainable practice. She uses her art-making as a tool to explore key concepts which are central to her individual journey through life.