Part of the Big British Asian Summer season, this profile of Raqib Shaw is the first of three new episodes of What Do Artists Do All Day?
Coveted by the world's biggest collectors, Raqib Shaw is an enigmatic art superstar. His baroque paintings, fusing pop kitsch and images from his Kashmiri homeland, have sold for millions.
A flamboyant personality, he works in an extravagant studio squeezed into an old sausage factory in Peckham, south London. He creates his art in an amazing fantasy world resembling a 21st-century version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, with thousands of plants, waterfalls, bonsai trees and beehives. The film opens in the dramatic aftermath of a fire in the studio, and with remarkable access, offers a portrait of the art and life of Raqib Shaw.
