Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost

Epic and intricate, monumental and meticulous—the paintings of Kashmir-raised, London-based artist Raqib Shaw offer fantastical meditations on identity, transformation, and the redemptive power of beauty. At the Art Institute, Shaw debuts his more-than 100-feet-wide, 21-panel Paradise Lost (2009–25), the artist's most ambitious and personal project to date. This magnificent allegorical painting takes viewers on a spellbinding journey, from the nocturnal solitude of the artist's childhood in Kashmir to the frenzied daylight of the art world and the West to finally a fragile, renewed dawn. Each panel is dense with symbolism: mythical beasts, anthropomorphic hybrids, collapsing kingdoms, and natural beauty in various states of transformation.