An Offering to Beauty: Raqib Shaw on Paradise Lost

Raqib Shaw

At the time, 1999, I was a young student far from home. I had been forced by political unrest to leave the beautiful landscapes of Kashmir and had moved to New Delhi and then London, where I was attending Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. I was navigating personal upheaval and quite a lot of cultural displacement, but I think I knew, even then, that I wanted to create a work that could bear the weight of memory and perhaps metaphor—a work that could be a visual symphony containing both the emotional chaos of exile and the quiet revelations of self-invention.

And yet I must admit that I never knew that this painting would turn out to be the way it has—a work that spans 100 feet in length and has taken a bit more than two decades of thought, labor, and introspection. I didn’t have a fixed plan as far as the composition was concerned, no predetermined outcome. Paradise Lost has been made, moment by moment, revelation by revelation and has become, in part, an autobiographical journey.

A wide painting shows an intricate and complex scene, going from a human figure sitting atop a rocky cliff howling up at the moon, through a densely forested area in which various animals are engaged in chasing and attacking, to a hybrid figure sitting in a tree gesturing to a flock of birds darting across a blue sky, to a group of blue baboons in a pink-flowered tree ripping into fresh meat. — *Paradise Lost* (chapter 1 of 4), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

The painting documents my life until the year 2015, tracing a path from childhood through exile and rebellion, artistic awakening, emotional turmoil, and transformation that still continues. But it is not solely about me. It is a story of the many paradises we inevitably lose as we move through life: the paradise of childhood, of innocence, of excitement and anticipation, of novelty. We lose the ease of belonging and the calm of that mental stillness that comes from lack of anxiety. And while these losses are deeply personal, they are surely universally felt. We all carry such losses as we move through life and construct inner worlds in response.

I share many of my own losses and inner worlds in Paradise Lost through metaphorical language. In Kashmir metaphor is intrinsic to the way people speak and think. (At least it was that way 20-odd years ago.) Metaphor, rather than directness, conveys meaning with the greatest precision and depth. In the same way, Paradise Lost does not aim to describe, but it certainly aims to suggest, to provoke reflection.

A painting shows a nighttime scene in which an animal-headed hybrid figure sits atop a rocky cliff howling up at a full moon. A wolf sits behind the figure echoing its howl. On the right is the top half of a large pine tree. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

For example, you’ll see at the very beginning of the painting in the first panel on the far left a scene that is a metaphor for the innocence and clarity that marked the beginning of my life. A lone figure with an animal head howls at the moon amid the majestic Karakoram mountain ranges where I come from. This is where I locate my younger self. I was solitary, contemplative, and very deeply connected to nature. I remember very clearly that I saw myself as alone, yet not lonely and very much at home amongst animals, amongst trees, amongst the quiet immensities of the natural world.

A painting shows a cat-headed figure lunging in a dramatic backbend, holding an empty birdcage above its head. The hybrid figure, which also includes an open mouth at its crotch, is atop a large boulder against a dark sky. Behind it is a small deer, and in front of it is a coiled hissing snake. Above the figure, as if just released from the open cage, is a small bird in flight. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

In the next panel, there is a solitary figure depicted in a stylized manner releasing a bird from its gilded cage. The bird’s release represents a turning point, a moment of emancipation, of stepping away from inherited structures—be they familial, cultural, or even spiritual. It is, I suppose, a visual equivalent of finding one’s voice or of choosing an inner path over an imposed one.

A painting shows a crowned cat-headed figure kneeling on a large tree branch. Its arms are bound behind its back, and it is surround by rearing, hissing snakes. The blue sky is filled with puffy white clouds, and a few birds can be seen in flight. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

In the third panel, we encounter a bound figure—still, restrained, and encircled by serpents. These are not naturalistic snakes but adorned and shimmering with jewels and enamel. There’s even a double-headed one. They represent doubt—persistent, glittering, and seductive doubt, the doubt that comes from within and the doubt instilled from without.

A painting shows an insect with elaborately patterned wings standing amid richly colored daffodils. In the lower left an iguana-type lizard crawling up rocks, and a hissing snake can be seen in the center at the bottom. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

Amidst these snakes is a particular detail that I hold dear. A praying mantis encrusted with crystals perched atop the daffodils, and this creature, delicate and meticulous as he is, stands as a symbol of my approach to painting during this period—an approach marked by intensity, innocence, and painstaking precision. These were the years when I painted not only to express but to survive, to transmute uncertainty into a sort of intricacy, an obsession, and I think there is something sacred in this moment—that moment of acknowledgement that self-doubt, while painful, can also lead to clarity and definitely to the refinement of one’s inner world.

While the painting continues across many more panels and years of journeying through ambition and disillusionment, turmoil and redemption, I want to leave us on one detail toward the end of the painting when the grand structures and symbols fall away, replaced by a simple forest clearing, and at the center stands a modest, crudely-built hut in the style of the nomads of Kashmir. It’s a humble dwelling, full of reverence.

A painting shows a nighttime view of a rocky and densely forested area in which various animals wander peacefully. A brook cuts through the trees on the left, and a small hut-like structure sits in a clearing. Inside the hut a man wrapped in an elaborately patterned robe sits by a fire. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

Inside, we see, by the glow of a small fire, a figure, and of course, that’s myself again, and with my beloved canine companion, Mr. C, by my side. There is no spectacle here, no wealth. There’s no audience. And surrounding us are deer, antelope, and other animals that are almost like silent companions who reflect a sense of harmony, rather than dominance. There are these vessels in the hut, but they’re empty. There’s no food and no offering of any material abundance whatsoever.

A painting shows a nighttime view of a small hut-like structure on a hillside in the middle of a rocky forested area. The structure is made from various natural materials—sticks, rocks, wood, moss. Inside a man sits wrapped in an elaborately patterned robe, and a small brown and white dog stands on its hind legs with its front paws on the man's knees. Just outside the hut, a bright orange fire burns inside a circle of rocks. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

This is a life stripped down to its essentials, and this panel represents my inner sanctuary, a place of retreat, of emotional truth, and of belonging beyond performance. I have returned to a vision of life grounded in nature, in companionship, and in quietude. And I believe that this perhaps is the closest image to peace that exists in the whole painting. This space is the space that I’m extremely fortunate to carry in my head and that I retreat to as and when I can and as and when I really need it. And it is, I think, the place where my creation and whatever I do in life really comes from.

As I reflect on Paradise Lost today with the passage of time, I feel less like its author and more like its instrument. It no longer feels entirely mine. It feels as though I was simply the medium through which it came into being, guided by forces I did not fully understand at the time and I’m not really sure that I understand now.

And in a sense, I believe that this painting belongs to the future. It was made not only to document a life, but to offer something to those who come after—a space of reflection for emotional recognition and perhaps for quiet rebellion against forgetfulness.

A painting shows an idyllic scene of a wooded area. Deer graze in a field in front of a tall castle tower. In the foreground on the left is a bird-headed, brightly colored standing figure, and on the right, an ornamented unicorn. High in the sky in the distance, a shirtless male figure with wings appears to be falling as feathers drop from his wings. — *Paradise Lost* (detail), 2009–25

Raqib Shaw

Collection of the artist

Above all, Paradise Lost is an offering to beauty. And not beauty as ornament, but as necessity. I believe deeply that art has the power to transform sorrow into meaning, and it has this wonderful quality to alchemize personal pain into something luminous and enduring. In a time where attention is fleeting and meaning often feels fractured, I do hope that this work invites the viewer to slow down and to look carefully and to feel without haste.

—Raqib Shaw, artist

Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost opens June 7 in Galleries 141–42. Shaw will join curator Madhuvanti Ghose in a conversation about this epic painting on the installation’s opening day, June 7, at 2:00.