In Echoes Over Arabia, Raqib Shaw unveils a cycle of nocturnal paintings and layered works on paper in which myth, memory and psychology converge. These pieces echo sacred Islamic manuscripts while withholding their calligraphic content, leaving behind a visual language that speaks of memory, longing and the fragility of existence.
Watch a trailer about the making and inspiration for ‘Echoes Over Arabia’
Directed by: Dominic Gilday. Produced by: Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, Bloomsday Films.
Shaw’s formative years in Kashmir, a region steeped in mysticism, have profoundly shaped his sensibility and the ethos of Kashmiri Sufism – with its emphasis on transcendence through love, beauty and inner reflection – is deeply embedded in the works. Even when they address conquest, destruction and societal turmoil, the pieces resonate with a spiritual undercurrent. Shaw reimagines the Orientalist night from within, drawing on the contemplative chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, the devotional stillness of Zurbarán and the dramatic flair of Delacroix. Firelight, moonlight and shadow illuminate the artist as he navigates visionary animals, spectral visitors and symbolic companions.
Echoes Over Arabia I, 2025
Acrylic liner and enamel on birch wood
109 x 137 cm (42.91 x 53.93 in)
The works on paper deepen this inquiry. Conceived as marginalia slowly eroded by insects and fire, they function as living palimpsests: burnt apertures peel back layers of miniature painting, historical photographs and the past remembered through distance. Their perforated surfaces echo a psychological process rather than an aesthetic effect.
Shaw’s lifelong engagement with Jung structures these works. Insects operate like unconscious forces tunnelling toward buried material; trompe-l’œil burn-holes mimic psychic ruptures; and recurring watchful eyes become inner witnesses. Materially, paper itself becomes performative as the surface stages a slow process of revelation.
Presented in the heart of Doha during Art Basel, Echoes Over Arabia draws on the cultural resonance of Arabia as both a geographic and symbolic landscape: a place where ancient traditions reverberate against modern struggles and where Shaw’s own journey unfolds through layers of memory and ornament. Echoes Over Arabia offers not a narrative but a contemplative map of the self in transformation.
My work, in great parts, is a negotiation with the shadow: what we inherit, what we bury, and what insists on returning in the form of light.
— Raqib Shaw
Born in Calcutta and raised in Kashmir, Shaw now lives and works in London. He enrolled at Central St Martins in 1998, completing his MA in 2002. His work has been the subject of important solo exhibitions at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago (2025); The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino (2024); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2024); Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2024); Frist Art Museum, Nashville (2023); The Little House, Dries van Noten, Los Angeles (2022); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2018); The Whitworth, Manchester (2017); Rudolfinum, Prague (2013); Manchester Art Gallery (2013); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2008); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2006); and Tate Britain, London (2006). Shaw’s work is housed in prominent public collections, including that of Tate, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Thaddaeus Ropac at Art Basel Qatar
Booth M113
3—7 February 2026
Preview days (by invitation only)
First Choice, Tuesday 3 February, 11am—7pm
First Choice, Wednesday 4 February, 11am—3pm
First Choice & Preview, Wednesday 4 February, 3—7pm
Public days (access with a ticket or a VIP card)
First Choice & Preview, Thursday 5 February, 11am—12pm
VIP or purchased tickets, Thursday 5 February, 12—7pm
VIP or purchased tickets, Friday 6 February, 12.30—8.30pm
First Choice & Preview, Saturday 7 February, 11am—12pm
VIP or purchased tickets, Saturday 7 February, 12—7pm
Venues
M7: Msheireb Downtown Doha, Abdulla Bin Thani St, Doha, Qatar
Barahat Msheireb: Msheireb Downtown Doha, Abdulla Bin Thani Street, Doha, Qatar
Doha Design District (DDD): Msheireb Downtown Doha, Al Khail St, Doha, Qatar
