Pasang Surut (Tides)

Penang lives by the tide. Twice a day the sea comes up to the jetties and goes out again, and what it leaves behind changes a little each time.

Hisham Ramli works from the land side. His oils are built in thick layers of laterite red and dusk colour, then scraped back, so every surface shows what was there before.

Rani Devi works from the water. She tears batik and indigo cloth into islands, stitches jute into roots, and lets the thread show. Hung together, the two read as one shoreline: earth meeting sea, and both giving way.