Karachi-born artist Ajea Zahid explores the complexities of the human experience through her paintings. Speaking about her 2025 work I Need a Minute, she explains:

"The painting comes from a very specific moment when someone is just about to do something, but hasn’t yet. It’s that pause where you can feel the weight of everything on yourself, the exhaustion, hesitation or life catching up really. I think the title was pretty ironic for it too, it’s like where a person feels both present and slightly out of reach."

Ajea Zahid (b.2000. Karachi) is a visual artist, from Lahore, Pakistan based in London. In 2024, she graduated with a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore and is currently pursuing her MA at the Royal College of Art (RCA). She graduates this year.

Working primarily with oil on canvas, Zahid works from observations and memory to construct figures that sit somewhere between the deeply familiar and the unknowable. She invites viewers to pause, reflect, and engage emotionally.