Sulaman-Butt graduated with a BFA in Fine Art from Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art in 2016, before completing her MFA at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art in 2021. Working from original photography, she stages her source material with close attention to ideas of posture, power and performance. In her paintings, the viewer can be placed in a position of dominance or submission, made aware of their own act of looking.

Sulaman-Butt is interested in how identity travels from the private self to the public image. “I’m intrigued by how identities are fashioned, and the journey from people’s inner worlds through to their outward appearance,” she tells The Wick, pointing to “the behavioural choices we make, and how we present ourselves within our communities.” In the artist’s work, appearance is a language of social codes and inherited expectations.

Portraiture, for Sulaman-Butt, is also a form of staging. “Spectacle and performance within portraiture have always been a driving force behind my work,” she says. Theatre and photography inform the way she creates her source material, particularly “the choreography of Pina Bausch” and “the psychologically charged atmosphere in Gregory Crewdson’s photography.”

Her work has already entered major public contexts. Her painting Society was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, a milestone Sulaman-Butt describes as her biggest achievement to date. Her accolades include the Clifford Chance Printmakers Purchase Prize, which she won in 2021, alongside shortlisting for the ACS Studio Prize in 2020 and longlisting for the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2017. She was also an exhibitor in the BP Portrait Award from 2017 to 2018. Most recently, her work was included in a group show at Rajiv Menon Contemporary in Los Angeles, which ended in July 2026.

Her champion is Harsch Sood, a curator, art advisor and collector working across art, fashion and contemporary culture. Sood is drawn to Sulaman-Butt’s use of figuration and to the way her paintings bring the viewer close to the subjects they depict:

“I chose Khushna Sulaman Butt because I have always been drawn to figurative painting and its ability to make deeply human experiences feel immediate and intimate. What particularly interests me about Butt is the way she brings this into a contemporary context, creating paintings that are both visually arresting and emotionally charged.

I am especially drawn to the scale of some of her works. Their physical presence can engulf the viewer, creating an immersive encounter with the figures rather than simply presenting them as subjects to observe. That sense of intimacy and confrontation is powerful. You are in the scene yourself.”

Scale gives Sulaman-Butt’s paintings their physical force. Her figures occupy space with confidence, pulling the viewer into a more direct encounter with questions of visibility and control.

For Sood, Sulaman-Butt’s practice also opens urgent conversations around community and belonging:

“I am also drawn to Khushna’s position as an ally to queer communities and the visibility she helps create around queer lives and experiences, particularly within a South Asian context. This gives her practice a deeper resonance, opening conversations around identity, belonging, intimacy and acceptance to me and my lived experiences.

As a curator and collector, I am interested in artists who bring fresh perspectives to established visual languages. Butt combines the power of figuration with a contemporary social consciousness in a way that feels both distinctive and relevant.”