Artist Interview09.10.2006 Raqib Shaw’s extraordinary paintings captivate the eye with their rich colours and intricate detail. Yet beneath their glittering surfaces lies a fantasy world simmering with erotic tension and violence. Inspired by an eclectic range of sources, his work presents explosive collisions of fact and fiction, nature and culture. Hans Holbein was the first Western painter Shaw encountered when he arrived in London from Kashmir at age sixteen, and Holbein inspires a new body of work for this exhibition.