Weho, Los Angeles
Raqib Shaw
Tales from an Urban Garden
Dries Van Noten - The Little HouseDries Van Noten and Jeffrey Deitch, in collaboration with White Cube, are honored to present the work of Raqib Shaw in Tales from an Urban Garden at The Little House. Tales from an Urban Garden brings the enchanted world of Raqib Shaw’s London studio garden to Dries Van Noten Los Angeles. Inspired by his memory of his mother’s garden in Kashmir, where he grew up, Raqib Shaw transformed the concrete parking lot adjacent to his South London studio into “a world in miniature that could be magnified on canvas… a perfect theatre setting for my paintings where my life is re-enacted and recorded.” His opulent and astonishingly detailed paintings transport the viewer into the artist’s world. Shaw draws on a wide range of artistic and literary traditions to create his unique and original work. His art reflects his deep knowledge of the art of India, England, continental Europe, Persia, and Japan among other influences. The artist’s literary and musical interests also inform his work. His painting has a timeless quality. It is contemporary in its exuberance, while evoking the history of vanished landscapes. Raqib Shaw’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art among other international venues. His art was first introduced to the United States by Jeffrey Deitch in 2005. Tales from an Urban Garden is his first exhibition in Los Angeles. Raqib Shaw has produced a book to accompany the exhibition. Raqib Shaw’s transgressive vision is explored through highly personal imagery that is both opulent and fantastical. Combining iconography from both East and West, Shaw draws on a wide range of sources including art history, mythology, poetry, theatre, religion, science and natural history. Highly detailed, his paintings are executed with pools of enamel and metallic industrial paints meticulously applied and manipulated to the desired effect with a porcupine quill. Every motif is outlined in embossed gold, a technique similar to ‘cloisonné’ found in early Asian pottery, which is one of many sources of inspiration to Shaw. Raqib Shaw was born in Calcutta, India in 1974 and lives and works in London.