National Galleries of Scotland

Silk Scarf exclusive to the National Galleries of Scotland

Shaw borrows the Baroque architectural setting of Marcello Venusti’s work, to create a technicolour stage for a dance by the Hindu God Shiva. Complete with skeletons swinging on ropes suspended from the ceiling and cavorting figures in Indian dress, the scene is strewn with gold coins, showered from the balcony above by mischievous characters peering down. By combining elements in this way, Shaw disrupts the harmony of the picture plane and sets up dualities: that of heaven and hell, eroticism and restraint, transgression and submission, reality and fantasy.