Zeina Saleem

Zeina Saleem is a London-based artist born in India. With a background in textile design and graphic communication, studied at Central Saint Martins, London.

 Her practice sits at the intersection of colour field painting and abstract expressionism, exploring the emotional power of colour through layered, intuitive compositions.

Saleem returned to painting after years working in design, finding in it a way back to herself. Her work is shaped by personal experiences of anxiety, disconnection, and the quiet search for hope and by a long-held belief that human feeling goes far beyond what language alone can hold.

Process & Materials

Saleem works in acrylic and gouache on unprimed cotton canvas, building each painting slowly through repeated gestures and instinctive colour decisions. Bright, contrasting tones are layered until they find their own balance; warm pinks, deep reds, burning oranges, soft purples — settling into swirling organic forms that feel simultaneously familiar and entirely her own. The unprimed canvas is central to her process: colour absorbs differently, bleeds at the edges, and carries a rawness that primed surfaces don't allow. Each painting holds contradictions; vulnerability and strength, stillness and movement, anxiety and calm and invites the viewer into a space where colour becomes a site of feeling rather than just seeing.