What is Raqib Shaw Known For
In the universe of contemporary art, few figures embody a more paradoxical fusion of extravagance and exactitude than Raqib Shaw. Born in Calcutta, raised in Kashmir, and based in London, Shaw’s meteoric rise to art world fame is marked by the incandescent beauty of his intricate paintings, which shimmer with jewel-like surfaces, fantastical beasts, and lush dreamscapes. His work, though often dismissed as too decorative in a world that fetishizes minimalism, has carved a niche all its own, at once opulent and obsessive, maximalist and methodical.
Who is Raqib Shaw?
Raqib Shaw was born in 1974 in Calcutta, India, and spent his formative years in the culturally rich region of Kashmir. His family’s business in luxury textiles, especially Kashmiri shawls and carpets, laid the visual and tactile foundation of his artistic sensitivity. In the 1990s, political instability in Kashmir prompted Shaw to move to London, where he enrolled at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. London became the cradle for Shaw’s creative rebirth.
Despite facing early struggles in the British art scene, Shaw’s singular vision, melding Eastern mythologies with Western art history, ornamentation with narrative, earned him recognition by the mid-2000s. His breakout moment came in 2006 when he was featured in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, where his work drew critical acclaim.
Shaw is renowned for his dazzling, enamel-like surfaces and intricately detailed imagery, often inspired by Persian miniatures, Japanese screens, Baroque painting, and Indian textile traditions. His paintings are labor-intensive marvels that blend iconographic depth with sheer visual excess.
He’s also known for his subversive reinterpretations of Old Masters, such as works after Holbein, Cranach, and Bosch, but with a surreal, queer, and post-colonial twist. Shaw’s art is a deeply personal amalgam of identity, memory, fantasy, and rebellion. His atelier in Peckham, South London, is both a sanctuary and a stage, where the worlds of Albrecht Dürer and Bollywood, of Mughal miniatures and manga, harmonize in defiant grandeur.
How Does Raqib Shaw Make His Artwork?
Creating a Raqib Shaw painting is an act of ritualistic devotion. He works in a painstaking technique that involves a mixture of industrial and artisanal methods. Each work begins with a drawn outline using fine metal rods dipped in liquid gold or silver, recalling the stained-glass-like contours of cloisonné enamel. These outlines are then filled with layers of enamel paints, glitter, semi-precious stones, and metallic pigments. The process can take months or even years for a single canvas.
Shaw often works barefoot in his studio, dressed in custom robes, surrounded by exotic birds, antiques, and a curated chaos that inspires his theatrical worlds. He views art-making as both a spiritual practice and a sensual escape, part meditation, part madness. His assistants help with the more mechanical aspects, but Shaw remains the final authority on every dot, line, and jewel-like shimmer.
Unlike traditional painters who use oil or acrylic, Shaw uses industrial enamel paints on aluminum or birchwood panels, resulting in a surface that appears glossy, hard, and otherworldly. These paintings are as tactile as they are visual, a synesthetic experience that defies simple categorization.
What Art Style is Raqib Shaw Associated With?
Raqib Shaw’s style can be described as Baroque-surrealist-meets-decorative-fantasy, though such labels never fully capture the breadth of his aesthetic. Critics have linked his art to:
Neo-Baroque: Due to its theatrical drama, opulence, and ornamentation.
Surrealism: Because of his dream-like, fantastical subject matter filled with anthropomorphic creatures, celestial gardens, and erotic symbolism.
Pop Rococo: A tongue-in-cheek term referencing his blend of 18th-century excess with contemporary pop culture.
Postcolonial Gothic: A term some scholars use to describe how Shaw deconstructs colonial histories through fantastical narratives.
Ultimately, Shaw stands as a genre-defying artist, one who merges East and West, myth and history, realism and fantasy. He belongs to a lineage of visionary artists who reject trends and build entire mythologies of their own.
What Materials Does Raqib Shaw Use?
Shaw is a materials alchemist. His toolbox includes:
Industrial Enamel Paints: For their glossy finish and intense colors.
Gilded Metal Rods: Used to draw outlines like cloisonné in traditional jewelry-making.
Semi-Precious Stones: Such as rubies, sapphires, and quartz embedded into his surfaces.
Glitter and Glass Beads: To add texture and sparkle, amplifying the sensuality of his canvases.
Wood Panels or Aluminum Sheets: As surfaces instead of canvas, which provides a rigid base for heavy materials.
Customized Tools: Shaw has designed specific tools for outlining, layering, and applying embellishments with millimeter precision.
His materials reflect his core belief that art is an indulgent, sacred offering, a feast for the senses and the soul.
What Are Raqib Shaw’s Famous Artworks?
Some of Shaw’s most iconic and critically acclaimed works include:
1. “Absence of God – III (After Oskar Kokoschka)” (2008–2011)
One of his monumental pieces, this reinterpretation of Kokoschka’s Bride of the Wind becomes a phantasmagorical epic, rich in symbolism, melancholia, and eroticism.
2. “Garden of Earthly Delights” Series (2004–2008)
Inspired by Hieronymus Bosch, Shaw’s version of the Garden of Earthly Delights replaces Christian iconography with hedonistic avatars and mythical beasts, set in lush paradisiacal landscapes.
3. “Self-Portrait in the Study After Holbein” (2016)
Part of his series paying homage to Hans Holbein, Shaw positions himself in the grand tradition of self-portraiture, surrounded by books, curiosities, and mythic symbols.
4. “Paradise Lost” Series
Inspired by John Milton’s epic, Shaw explores themes of exile, temptation, and celestial fall, often read as allegories of Shaw’s own experience as a diasporic queer artist.
5. “The Retrospective After Bosch”
Held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, this large-scale reinterpretation of Bosch’s vision is one of Shaw’s most ambitious works, loaded with intricate characters, radiant flora, and demonic hybrids.
These works, monumental in scale and mythological in scope, are not just paintings, they are worlds.
How Many Artworks Does Raqib Shaw Have?
Exact numbers are difficult to pin down, especially given Shaw’s perfectionism and the sheer time involved in each piece. However, art historians estimate that Shaw has created between 100 and 150 major paintings, along with dozens of works on paper, drawings, and limited-edition prints.
His slow, detail-oriented process means that he produces far fewer works than most contemporary artists of his renown. This scarcity adds to the value and exclusivity of his art.
How Much Does Raqib Shaw’s Artwork Cost?
Raqib Shaw’s artworks command high six-figure to seven-figure prices in both the primary and secondary markets. Below are some notable auction records and price benchmarks:
“Absence of God V” sold for over $5.5 million USD at Sotheby’s in 2007.
Smaller works and limited editions often range between $150,000 to $500,000.
Major paintings, especially from acclaimed series or retrospectives, regularly fetch $1–3 million in top-tier galleries and auctions.
The uniqueness of his medium, limited production, and cult-like following among elite collectors contribute to the high valuation. Shaw’s works are held in the collections of museums, billionaires, and major cultural institutions around the world.
Where Is Raqib Shaw’s Artwork Located?
Shaw’s artwork can be found in prestigious collections and museums across the globe, including:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
Tate Britain (London)
The British Museum
Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester)
The Victoria & Albert Museum
MoMA (New York)
The Rubell Museum (Miami)
In addition to public institutions, many of his works reside in private collections in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Notably, art collectors such as François Pinault and Charles Saatchi have shown great interest in Shaw’s work.
Shaw also stages elaborate exhibitions in his Peckham studio, which has become a pilgrimage site for curators, collectors, and fans of maximalist art. His 2023 solo exhibition, “Tales from an Urban Garden,” drew massive acclaim and further cemented his status as a living legend.
The Mythmaker of Modern Art
Raqib Shaw stands as a testament to the power of personal vision in an art world often ruled by trends and austerity. His paintings, at once flamboyant and philosophical, erotic and erudite, challenge the minimalist canon with unapologetic splendor. In a time where art is increasingly digitized, politicized, and commodified, Shaw dares to return us to the sacred theater of the handmade, the mystical, and the ornamental.
He invites us not to decode his world, but to surrender to it, to fall, like the angels in his works, into a paradise of sensuality, sorrow, and self-invention. Whether cloaked in the language of mythology or buried beneath glitter and gold, Raqib Shaw’s art reminds us that beauty is not a luxury, it’s a form of resistance. image/whitecube.com
