Catalogue / Shakibul Islam
Shakibul Islam
Fighting zone
A railway track runs through a garden where no one is judged
A washroom sign glows above a red room.
A yellow horse and a pink one push out of the dark.
Blue men stand in a line beside the railway track.
The tangerine opens, full of small bodies.
On the second panel the corn rises into a lilac sky.
Pink figures lie around it in rings.
The colour stings the eyes. Stay with it.
The work
Shakibul Islam paints the places where queer people meet without being judged: public washrooms, thickets and the bushes beside railway lines. Homophobia pushes them there. For him this painting is about survival. A tangerine and an ear of corn stand in for the body. Nature, he says, has never discriminated in what it creates. When the finished corn panel falls and tears, his batchmates mend it with gesso and strips of canvas. Islam paints that part again. He does not hide the repair.
In the artist’s words
“Through painting, I examine how bodies, particularly queer bodies, are shaped, disciplined and negotiated within heteronormative structures of power. I use a bright colour palette to address visibility and judgment. Just as it is difficult to hold one's gaze on bright colour, society struggles to look at queer lives directly. Through this tension, I seek balance and question discrimination.”
- Theme
- Queer survival and refuge
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 167.64 × 365.76 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- 1
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- Sir J. J. School of Art, Architecture and Design, Mumbai
- From
- Mumbai
- Code
- RC-651
- @realshakibulislam
Meet the artist
