Untitled

Shanti Dave, one of India’s most acclaimed abstractionists, is celebrated for his murals created for cities around the world. Yet, he has been an experimenter throughout his career and worked across mediums right since he completed his studies at M. S. University, Baroda, in 1958. This Untitled woodcut is from the time when Dave had embarked upon the path towards complete abstraction, exploring mental and geographical topographies through his art. Some characteristics of his oeuvre, like aggregates of amorphous shapes and messages in a mysterious script, are evident in this work, appearing like a streak of illumination on a dark landscape.