Sol Karmel-Shann

Sol Karmel-Shann (b. 1997) is a figurative artist based in Canberra in Australia. He paints portraits in oils, working intuitively until an image and mood start to unfold. His expressive use of brush strokes, texture and colour further develops the painting’s mood. The sensitivity and depth of feeling with which he paints a person’s facial expression, body language and context is arresting and the viewer cannot help but wonder about that particular subject’s unique character and life in that moment.
Karmel-Shann has participated in residencies, in 2024 and 2025, held at Shark Island Institute, Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales—as part of a Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship. His winning painting, Static, was exhibited at the Gallery of New South Wales.

In 2022, Karmel-Shann won the Hornsby Art Prize, Sydney, for A Whispering Flag. He has been a finalist in numerous art prizes since 2021 and, as a result, has had his work shown in several exhibitions of finalists, including at Lethbridge Gallery (Brisbane), Cowra Regional Art Gallery (Cowra, New South Wales), Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre (Sydney) and Aarwun Gallery (Canberra). In 2025, in July, Sol exhibited his work at Horseshoe Gallery in Canberra; Civic Art Bureau, in October, also in Canberra; and, in November, at Outsider Gallery, in Sydney.