Tides, Mumbai
Exhibiting the love of shape and geography is seen across Rewati Shahani’s work, Tides centres on a series of distinct geometric forms, hand-drawn with a cartographer’s precision. Each, however, has been recast in some way to become something more than geometry, just as nations are more than their political boundaries. Some surrender their edges to the fluidity of water, ink and paint, mirroring the flow of people drawn to new lands like ocean tides swelled by the moon. Others are broken more aggressively, struck through with blood-red scars recalling the ‘Line of Control’ markings on maps of Kashmir.The result is thought-provoking and beautiful, the lunar aesthetic intentional. Earth’s only satellite is visible to, belongs to, everyone, no matter what their status or geography at ground level. Tides offers both critique and, crucially, hope – that in place of artificial boundaries it can be people, and not borders, that shape where, and how, we live.