The platonic solids are the most frequently studied shapes in history. For thousands of years, geometers have studied their mathematical properties and have been fascinated by their inherent beauty and symmetry. What makes them particularly important is that they are considered as the only five ‘perfect’ shapes in three-dimensional space that derive from a sphere. They appear the same from any vertex, their faces are made of the same regular shape, and their vertices represent the most symmetrical distribution of the numbers four, six, eight, twelve and twenty within a sphere.

Awartani has taken direct inspiration from these forms and has translated these three-dimensional shapes into five sculptures that examine the dual properties that these shapes share, as each polyhedron has a dual or ‘polar’ polyhedron with faces and vertices interchanged, which is also known as polar reciprocation. By this duality principle each platonic solid has a pair that fits within each other in geometric harmony.

In her rendering, she has worked with craftsmen in India and created the core shapes in wood, applying her own unique visual language of sacred geometry through traditional woodworking techniques. These shapes in their perfection had also been attributed to the five classical elements (earth, air, fire, water, aether) by Plato, and the wood is a tie to this being the only substance that needs all elements to survive in nature.

The patterning and technique not only give a fresh perspective, but also emphasizes the relevance that these shapes have played in Islamic art, as Euclidean geometry can be seen as the source or main principle that sacred geometry was built upon within the Islamic tradition.