EN · Thaddaeus Ropac · London Paris Salzburg Milan Seoul · Preview Art Basel Qatar · Artiste Raqib Shaw · Biographie · Gallery Photo ·Press Release Thaddaeus Ropac

 'My work exists on two levels, in the relationship between the background and the foreground, 

and how they talk to each other. It's also a satire on human society and the human condition in general.'

Raqib Shaw

Raqib Shaw The Libricide of the Pragmatic Pessimist, 2024
Acrylic liner, enamel, and graphite on paper
68 x 47 cm (26.77 x 18.50 in)

Born in Calcutta, India, and raised in Kashmir, Raqib Shaw comes from a family of merchants and his early experience of living among antiques, jewellery and exotic fabrics and carpets has informed his highly intricate and brightly coloured paintings. He creates opulent visions of unearthly realms populated by cavorting monkey kings, leather-strapped centaurs and fearsome tiger-headed and zebra-mounted warriors. The world he portrays is beautiful, terrifying, debauched, luxurious and steeped in mythology, with a thrilling synergy between the fantastical imagery and the delicacy of his technique.

Raqib Shaw  Winter Landscape in the Studio (after C D Friedrich), 2021
Acrylic, enamel and watercolour on paper
50.6 x 50.5 cm (19.92 x 19.88 in)

Shaw's paintings on birch panels and paper, and his sculptures in bronze, often take inspiration from eastern and western mythology, as well as masterpieces from art history. Using these sources to construct a compositional or narrative framework, he adds elements from his distinctive visual lexicon, using a range of unusual media – including rhinestones, glitter and enamel. He paints figures, carpets, costumes and mythical landscapes with exquisite skill, using a painstaking method that recalls the cloisonné technique used since ancient times to decorate metalwork and ceramics.

Raqib Shaw Kashmir Danae (After Gossaert), 2017
Acrylic liner, enamel and rhinestones on birchwood
154 x 126 cm (60.63 x 49.61 in)

Raqib Shaw Fall of the Jade Kingdom I - Paradise Lost Chapter II, 2014–23

Acrylic liner, enamel, glitter and rhinestones on birch wood

91.44 x 152.4 cm (36 x 60 in)

Shaw himself often features in his paintings but is typically distinct from the surrounding action. 

He is usually depicted sitting on the floor or a bed, gazing into pools of water, mirrors or at maps, 

like a poet meditating on the sickness of the world or an artist struck by the potency of the visions 

in his mind. In one example, Self-portrait in the Study at Peckham (A Reverie after Antonello 

da Messina’s Saint Jerome) (2014), he reinterprets a work by the fifteenth-century artist as a crazed fantasy replete with demonic skeletons, ghouls, technicolour reptilian monkeys, a glistening full moon 

and a central figure – a blue-faced portrayal of Shaw in a floral robe – with his head thrown back, apparently cackling. One of the fascinations of his work is whether his seductive, mystical worlds 

are to be basked in or rejected.

Raqib Shaw Trio IV, 2014

Bronze with Renaissance patina

52 x 36 x 37 cm (20.47 x 14.17 x 14.57 in)

Shaw lives and works in his Peckham studio in south London, a city he first visited in 1992 and where he enrolled at Central St Martins in 1998, completing his MA in 2002. Born in Calcutta and raised in Kashmir, Shaw now lives and works in London. He enrolled at Central St Martins in 1998, completing his MA in 2002. His work has been the subject of important solo exhibitions at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago (2025); The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino (2024); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2024); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2024); Frist Art Museum, Nashville (2023); The Little House, Dries van Noten, Los Angeles (2022); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2018); The Whitworth, Manchester (2017); Rudolfinum, Prague (2013); Manchester Art Gallery (2013); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2006); and Tate Britain, London (2006).

Raqib Shaw Monkey King Boudoir I , 2012

Graphite, acrylic, glitter, enamel and rhinestones on paper

121 x 274 cm (47.64 x 10.87 in)

https://ainsiparlaitlart.blogspot.com/2026/01/fr-en-thaddaeus-ropac-london-paris.html

https://ainsiparlaitlart.blogspot.com/2025/10/art-basel-qatar-5-7-fevrier-2026-m7.html

https://ainsiparlaitlart.blogspot.com/2025/12/fr-en-art-basel-galleries-2026-view.html

Caption and courtesy information: 

https://ropac.net

https://ropac.net/gallery-documents/60/

Ainsi Parlait l' Art. L' Art Universel.
L' Art Sacré.
L' Art Singulier, d' Ici et d'Ailleurs. 
L'Art de Marque Qui se Démarque.
@ainsiparlaitlart_gerardpocquet

Pour en savoir plus : Le lien est dans la Bio
https://ainsiparlaitlart.blogspot.com
#ainsiparlaitlart #art #peinture #culture

https://www.instagram.com/gerardpocquet/?hl=fr
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpocquet/
https://www.facebook.com/pocquetfinance
https://www.facebook.com/gerard.pocquet