Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West Through September 2, 2024

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“It’s only in person . . . that you see how simply astonishing Shaw’s technique is.” —Washington Post

In his luminous paintings, Raqib Shaw blends Eastern and Western influences to create mesmerizing works of art that merge fable, history, and autobiography.

Born in India in 1974, Shaw spent most of his childhood in the Valley of Kashmir—a beautiful yet long-disputed territory marked by turmoil. On a trip to London in 1993, he fell in love with the Italian and Northern Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery. He eventually moved to London in 1988 to study art and has lived there ever since.

Shaw’s exquisitely rendered paintings seamlessly combine references to Western and Asian art histories, as well as sacred themes. Reflecting these intertwined traditions, the exhibition’s title—Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West—is taken from the 1889 Rudyard Kipling poem “The Ballad of East and West,” which honors the friendship shared by a British colonial officer and an Afghan warrior.

The artist is the protagonist throughout the exhibition as he views his paintings as visual diaries, a way of recording, processing, and even escaping from what is happening in his own life and in the world around him. “It’s my way of dealing with this world, it’s my way of escaping into another world,” Shaw explained. “I am a spectator, yet at the same time, I am a player.”

He paints with porcupine quills and fine needles to render the precise details of delicate flowers or distant mountains, which are outlined in embossed gold. Jewels, glitter, and semiprecious stones further enhance the opulence of the scenes, beguiling viewers through the iridescent shimmer of the surfaces, even as they sense the sadness that lurks beneath the glamour. Upon closer examination, conflict is present in almost every painting, evoking Kashmir’s turbulent history.

The Houston installation of this nationally touring exhibition also introduces two of the artist’s newest tapestries. Addressing the global threat posed by climate change, Shaw deftly weaves together not only East and West, but also beauty and conflict, hope and longing.

► Publication
The illustrated exhibition catalogue is available through the MFA Shop (713.639.7360) and the Museum’s Hirsch Library (713.639.7325).

Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West / June 9–September 2, 2024