Ravikumar Kashi Artist, Writer, Educator

Shadows of breath

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2025

Shadows of breath

Solo show at Gallery Threshold, Delhi. 31 Oct – 30 Nov 2025.

Work 30, from the series ‘We don’t end at our edges'

Cotton rag fiber pulp 3, scrolls of H 32’ x W 2’

Image credits – Sandeep Bali and Gallery Threshold

Shadows of Breath is an exploration of the intimate relationship between paper and the invisible, yet visceral, experience of inner life. This collection of works begins with a simple premise: that paper can serve as an effective analogy for the ephemeral body, a material that's both fragile and resilient, recording presences and absences.

Through the meditative and gestural process of pulp painting, each piece becomes a vessel, holding the haptic imprints of touch, texture, and pressure. These works embody the dual presence of what is there and what is absent, transforming paper from a mere surface into a porous, vulnerable body itself. The title refers to the fleeting, subtle marks—the shadows—left by the internal rhythms of life—the breath.

The relationship between paper and language is age-old. Here, however, instead of text appearing on paper, the paper itself transforms or merges with the text, thereby converging the metaphors of body and language. Language is treated as a skin, as well as the very trace of a thought, a whispered presence, or a held silence. The words we use, the stories we tell, and the silence we keep are all layers of a material that carries the spectral yet weighty essence of our identity.

In this exhibition, the fragility of paper, the echoes of the body, and the weight of language all coalesce into a conversation about the unspoken and the internal in the human experience. Ultimately, Shadows of Breath presents paper as an invocation of the enduring interplay between our physical form and the ethereal nature of our inner world.