Poetry none the less science

Nature Morte brings you Poetry none the less science, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Deshna Shah, on view from 1 April to 2 May 2026 at the gallery’s Vasant Vihar space in New Delhi. The exhibition marks Shah’s introduction to the gallery’s programme and brings together a body of work created over the past year.

Across these paintings, Shah approaches the canvas as a space for thinking in real time. The works function as visual maps of her cognitive process, bringing together fragments of conversations, books, philosophical ideas and everyday observations. Central to this approach is the way Shah understands her own neurodivergence: she describes ADHD as an extreme collector of information and dyslexia as an extreme re-organiser of it. As references accumulate across disciplines, they are broken apart and reassembled on the canvas, creating compositions where ideas collide, overlap and reform.

The exhibition’s title is drawn from The tao of physics by physicist Fritjof Capra, which explored parallels between modern scientific inquiry and ancient philosophical traditions. Shah extends this dialogue through references to Jain philosophy, whose ideas around cosmology, perception and cyclical time recur throughout the work. Many of the paintings draw on familiar visual systems such as grids, arrows and game-like structures to examine how behaviour and belief are organised. Distorted chessboards, maze-like pathways and references to the medieval Jain game Gyan Chaupar, an early precursor to Snakes and Ladders, appear across the exhibition, suggesting how ideas of progress, failure and learning have historically been mapped through symbolic frameworks.

Threaded throughout the works is Shah’s Twilight language, a cryptographic script developed from English letterforms and shaped by her multilingual upbringing. Appearing as coded text across the canvases, it reflects the artist’s ongoing interest in how language can both conceal and communicate meaning. Through symbols, diagrams and shifting spatial structures, the paintings consider questions of perception, time and inherited belief systems, often drawing connections between contemporary science and older philosophical frameworks.

With Poetry none the less science, Nature Morte introduces an artist whose practice moves fluidly between philosophy, pedagogy and visual experimentation. The exhibition offers an entry point into Shah’s work while reflecting the gallery’s continued commitment to supporting emerging voices within its programme.