Zakee Shariff is a London-based artist, textile designer, and creative director whose work bridges fine art, textile design, and creative direction. Since founding Zakee Shariff Studio in 1998, she has created a multifaceted practice encompassing painting, textile design, her self-titled printed ladies designer collection, and illustration — with exhibitions and collaborations spanning the UK, Japan, USA, Dubai, France, and Switzerland.
A first-generation born Asian British Londoner, raised by parents and grandparents from Indian, African, Iranian and American backgrounds, she was born in London, moved to Karachi, Pakistan at age two for about four years, and then back to North London. Her childhood by the ocean connected her deeply to the elements — nature, land, sky, cosmos — a connection that runs through everything she makes.
Working at the intersection of art and design, Zakee's practice is characterised by a distinctive visual language that translates seamlessly across mediums. Through spiritually guided work, intuition, personal healing, and emotion lead her process — a co-creation between herself and other dimensions, a dialogue unfolding on the canvas where ideas and feelings that cannot be written or spoken find form.
"I believe my work is a combination of a somatic personal experience of my own life — how I see the world and these within it — as well as being a channel for the divine to flow through me. Healing through the act of drawing for me was an unconscious act since I was very young. I always want to create an emotional response from my artwork; it's always a subconscious act of processing my feelings, connecting to people's emotions and heart through my own."
Some of your favorite projects?
My first solo art show at London Printworks Trust. It was amazing that they trusted my vision. Making artwork with my dear friend Ros Miller, creating the art collab Shariff Miller — it's a very unique connection. And creating a pop-up store in Japan with my friends Make Art Your Zoo (MAYZ), filled with my art, interior product and fashion.
Favorite artists?
...and she could go on and on.
Favorite fashion brands?
What would be a dream project?
Being asked to make a solo show of artwork and design, given the funding to make whatever I would like — and then taking the show around the world, visiting all sorts of places, watching and learning by people's interaction and reaction to the work.
What do you love most about New York and London?
Always feels like home from home. My stepfather is a New Yorker, so I have spent a lot of time there. It's so fresh and exciting — as a creative it just feels like a thriving place to be. I hate to leave. The spirit of my friends there just makes me feel warm inside.
Home. The richness of its cultures, the creative energy that flows through the city, the communities that have shaped who she is. North London to North West London — a life lived in layers, like the work itself.
Through her coaching practice Dream Forward, Zakee provides 1:1 transformation coaching and facilitates intimate women's groups, combining creative industry insight with her coaching training. She creates inclusive spaces where women explore emotional resilience, intuition, values alignment, and personal empowerment — working on boundary-making, clarity of vision, creative practices, and navigating life's transitions.
