VIEW ARTICLE
VIEW PDF
MUMBAI: While art collectors in the West are often known to open their homes and personal spaces to the public to view their collections, it’s rare for their counterparts in India to do so. The open exhibitions work well to further Indian contemporary art practice, promote the artists, and initiate an informed public discourse and critique about artistic practices that reflect today.
Art collector Saloni Doshi, though, has been letting in people across demographic into her Mazgaon office of Space 118 Art Foundation that supports artists through grants, mentorship and community programmes, to see her collection once a year. Each show spotlights different art practices ranging from photography to works with textiles.
This year, she is showing a hundred abstracts and landscapes in an exhibition titled The Presence of Absence, curated by architect Kunal Shah. “I have had access to some of the best private art collections in the country since a very young age,” says Doshi, 46, who has been collecting art since she was 22. “These exhibitions are my way to reciprocate the gesture, not just through a select private viewing, but for everyone,” she adds. She times these exhibitions during Art Mumbai, an annual art festival for which art lovers from around the country and a few from outside come to the city. The aim is to engage as many viewers as possible.
On view in the current exhibition are works that explore the world of colours, different forms and interesting narratives, featuring the creations of V N Jyothi Basu, Sharmishtha Ray, Sudarshan Shetty, Zarina Hashmi and others. “Non-figurative art transcends beyond known structures. It can make us uncomfortable and perplexed enough to ponder on underlying meanings,” says Shah.
While one views art to give shape to ideas and forms, it also opens the possibility of vivid interpretations and viewing experiences. “To engage with the non-figurative is to read between the lines of what is visible and invisible. The show is an invitation to dwell in this space, where meaning emerges not from what is shown, but from what is withheld,” adds Shah.
A series of three pencil, ink works, titled People in Prayer, and two others 404 Error: Place of Worship Not Found by Purvai Rai, appear like an assemblage of different shapes. Look closely and these will slowly reveal themselves. They are how three mosques look from the top view.
Sharmishtha Ray’s Blindspot -- three frames featuring a circle each (automatic writing with coloured pen) – stare back at you. It’s a take on how most people turn a blind eye to the LGBTQ community.
The highlight though, is Zarina's Delhi I, II and III. It’s a portfolio of three woodcuts, depicting forms of maps of Delhi, which Doshi acquired from the Luhring Augustine gallery in New York. It reached Doshi, who had spent her formative years in Delhi, during the COVID-19 lockdown. “I live alone. And this painting evoked a lot of emotions and memories in me. The work started screaming at me and I fell in love with the silence in the abstraction, the void, the non-figure and the non-narrative,” she says.
Since then she has been collecting abstracts, a hundred of which make for a very special viewing open to the public.
The exhibition is open to the public at Space118 Art Foundation, till February 16, 2026, from 11 am to 5 pm every day, including Sundays and public holidays.