Tanya Shah (b. 1997, Mumbai, India) received her MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in Computer Science and Studio Art with High Honors from Dartmouth College. Shah is a visual artist working primarily in photography and lens-based media. Raised in Hong Kong, and based across the US for a decade, Shah finds solace in photographing forests in the different geographic regions she has lived in. The landscapes serve as psychological self-portraits that remember and honour her experience with bipolar disorder. Making the work allows her to mourn years lost to illness while acknowledging the peace she has found since. “ground beneath me” reflects the evolution of her relationship with her past and her present mental state. Shah's work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Jaffe-Friede Gallery (New Hampshire, US), Praxis Gallery (Minnesota, US), and The Holy Art Gallery (London, UK). In May 2026, she was hand-selected by a curator for a solo exhibition at the Inspiration Gallery at an Ascension Brothers Hospital in Chicago. She completed a residency at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild in the Hudson Valley, New York and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Art at the City Colleges of Chicago.