In 2019 he graduated with a Fine Art Bachelor’s from the Zurich University of the Arts (CH) with a focus on Photography as well as Drawing and Painting. In 2021, he finished his Master’s degree in Costume Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp (BE). He exhibited in several international institutions and spaces, including Z33 House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt (BE), *Altefabrik Rapperswil during Grosse Regionale (CH), BASE Milano (IT), Morpho Antwerp (BE), Contemporary Art Institution Helmhaus Zurich (CH), Textile Museum Texture Kortrijk (BE) and Crux Galerie Athens (GR). He received the Emerging Artist Award during the 25th Gabrovo Biennial 2022 in Bulgaria. Additionally, he was granted the Royal Academy Antwerp Department Prize in Costume Design in 2021 and the CC Brugge Input/ Output Aanmoedigings Prize in 2023. In 2022, he collaborated with the Museum of Modern Religious Art (MMRK) for his first solo show at the 3rd Ypres Quadrennial (BE) and continued working with the MMRK in 2023 to curate the group exhibition “CROSS-ING WAY‐S” in Brussels. As of September 2023, he started his research project “God Save the Queers – The (not so) secret Life of Saints” at the Royal Academy in Antwerp. He lives and works in Antwerp.

As a starting point for his artistic practice, Denys Shantar often uses his own memories and family history, deploying different materials and techniques to create narratives that lie between reality and fiction. In his research about childhood, religion, migration, and queerness, he links the personal to current global but also historical events, weaving in symbols from mythology, art history, folklore and Christianity. While exploring his complex identity and relationship towards himself, the world and his family, he asks himself two simple questions: ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where do I come from?’. Since his Costume Design studies, he started to focus on the use of textile, embroidery and collaging in his work. Using predominantly recycled, gifted, or found fabric and materials, he gives his work an invisible layer through the object’s unknown past, combining it with the new given context. Besides his textile practice, he also creates In Situ works and/or uses curation in his artistic practice, like in his 2022’s solo show Will it bloom this year? held at the St. Martin’s Cathedral and St. Peter’s Church in Ypres.