Raqib Shaw

The luscious colours and lavish detailing to Raqib Shaw’s imagined paintings disguise the often intense, aggressive and sexual nature of the imagery depicted, seducing and distracting viewers with the exquisite glossy surface inspired by Hieronymous Bosch’s work in the 1600s. Animals and humans metamorphose back and forth, engaging in depraved erotic and violent actions. His paintings fuse motifs from old masters paintings with imagery exploring Shaw’s own transformation, having grown up in New Delhi as a Muslim minority in order to tell a narrative of becoming, negotiating and being.