RAQIB SHAW (B. 1974)

A fearsome dragon of dazzling, shimmering colour lunges across Raqib Shaw’s Death, Beauty and Justice IV, 2007. Peacock plumes of kaleidoscopic colour tremble as the dragon surges towards a cowering man, ducking at the onslaught of piercing swords. Scattered throughout Shaw’s mythological scene are flecks of glitter and rhinestones which shine radiantly in the light. Shaw’s practice blends Eastern and Western iconographies to form unique and hedonistic dreamscapes. As curator Norman Rosenthal says, his work ‘has this air of private excess—incredibly beautiful, very cultivated, knowledgeable—and he combines the cultures of East and West in an extraordinary way. Underneath all the hysteria there’s incredible pain and a sense of loss, both personal and political, for Kashmir’ (N. Rosenthal quoted in A. Needham, ‘Raqib Shaw: Inside the Garden of Earthly Delights’, W, October 30, 2013). In 2018, Shaw’s solo exhibition Reinventing the Old Masters was held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and his works have been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Tate Britain, London, among others.