A biography of Rajib Shak-Monteagle

Rajib Shak-Monteagle was born in Aharanda in the Sylhet province on the 20th november 1996 in a family of modest means. While studying at his village school, he drew a lot, his first art school was the Bangladesh countryside, he says. After working at a young age, he arrived in Paris in 2011.Today he possesses double nationality, bengla and french. Adopted by a french family, he followed several years french classes at Alliance française, while going on with his drawing ;he also took art classes with the City of Paris in Ivry. For three years he took part with Anne Sophie Vigot as head of the site,in the summer archaeological excavations of the chapter house at the abbey at St Evroult in the Orne ,and another year in the excavation at Lazaretto nuevo in Venice. He was accepted at Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts de paris in 2018, now in the 4th year in the studio of Nathalie Talec. He explored the possibilities of acrylic and oil painting, and used larger and larger picture frames.He learned pastel at villa Tamaris in La Seyne. His work-painting, drawing, sculpture, metal, engraving-often witnesse a rural world threatened by urbanization. Floods, rise of the sea level due to the climate change, pollution, all threaten a traditional world. He wrote and illustrated tales of village mythology which shall be published. In Montreuil Rajib followed the advices of the painter Noel Perrier. He also played in a film by Nat Lazreg and another by Lauriane Escaffre, and in a play at theatre Nanterre Amandiers. He made a short film « she is leaving » about Mona Lisa. He participated in two city projects of wall decorations by the municipalities of Montreuil and Rueil Malmaison,and during the term he passed during an international exchange between the Paris Beaux Arts and the Montréal University he produced projects and models for sculptures in public places . This term in the winter of 2021-2022 he also worked on ceramics and researches in painting with painter Julie Trudel, professor at the UQAM. Rajib has shown successfull exhibitions in Montreuil and in the Beaux Arts, with good press coverage. Besides his artistic activities, Rajib has community activities in Montreuil : he volunteered to bring daily meals to refugees and homeless people who were confined in a hotel and organize a drawing studio for them. Art critic on Shak-Monteagle’s work Rajib Shak’s work is characterizes by the depth of time,well hidden under the paintings surface ; the time of migrations which changed the world ; the time of juxtaposition of cultures, the time of the far away past he has discovered and consequently created when manipulating VIIth century bones in the Orne. He who knows that under the ground one finds swimming fishes you have to put back in the river . Rajib ‘s vision of the world is that of a continuous movement, towards destruction, as the destroying of Mona Lisa, unavoidable , but the destruction will leave marks of beauty, as beautiful as those of the old world. An optimistic vision.