Untitled, 1975 | Ink, pastel and graphite on paper | 13″ x 17″ (detail)
Arpita Singh has long been celebrated for the large, figurative paintings - vibrantly colorful and iconographically dense, these works gesture towards mythology and folklore, while drawing on the expressiveness of the line and textures evolved and developed during her seminal period of 1973-82. Singular in their allusion to contemporary Indian life, Singh’s works forge a unique visual vocabulary and narrative sensibility that have had major influence on the generations of artists who have followed her.
The 1973-82 period with predominantly abstract compositions on paper, principally reliant on line and primarily monochromatic—lay the formal foundations of Singh’s oeuvre and create an aesthetic bridge to her later and better known works. It reveals both a serious curiosity about line, depth and space, and a playful improvisation—a willingness to suspend certainty in the search for new. These tendencies continue into and indeed sustain Singh’s till today.
“Images in which the comic and the tragic seem interchangeable, are characteristic of work that has made Ms. Singh one of the best-known contemporary artists in India. They are also evidence of an art gradually darkening in tone and lightening in form, a rewarding way to go in this remarkable painter's hands.”
The New York Times
“There was a desire to put colours at times and I used them sparingly so that I remain in touch with them. The small lines in different colours appeared to be flags, and gradually as I started associating forms with recognisable things, narratives followed, and then the move back to figurative.”
Arpita Singh
Untitled, 1980 | Poster paint on paper | 22.5″ x 26.75″ (detail)
Always remaining attentive and focused, the artist works her way across the paper, line by line, and dot by dot. The drawings are her way of marking and shaping time….There is something relentless about the way she goes at it — mark-making without devolving into a signature gesture or flourish. One feels that she continually refuses the comforts provided by a style. The results are astonishing.
John Yau, Hyperallergic
"Arpita Singh achieves a richness in suggestion through the repetition of images as multiple reflections or as a system of inner rhymes so the self-same motifs in different positions or different relationships take on a different connotation..."
EBRAHIM ALKAZI
"…her imagery is not a direct reflection of her experiences, but an enigmatic passage wherein she works out her thoughts and emotions."
ELLA DATTA
"Sometimes stained or slightly battered, the drawings show their age proudly. This is art, after all, that survived the intensity of its own turbulent making."
BARRY SCHWABSKY
Arpita Singh was born in 1937 in West Bengal, India, and moved with her family to Delhi in 1946, where she has since lived and worked. She attended School of Art, Delhi Polytechnic, and after graduating, she worked as a textile designer at the Weaver’s Service Centre, part of the Handloom Board of India. Her work has been featured in exhibitions around the world, including Pompidou Centre, Paris; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Museo Nacional de Centro Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, MA; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; Asia Society, New York; Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney; Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA; Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi; National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai & New Delhi; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Spain; and Turner Contemporary, England. In 2019 a retrospective of Singh’s works was on view at The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
Sunset at Kasauli, 1976
Oil on canvas
31.5" x 25.5"
TG 3971
If you come this way, 2021
Oil on canvas
36” x 60”
TG 4335
Beware, 1997
Acrylic on acrylic sheet
25″ x 25″
TG 1007
Untitled, 1980
Pastel and poster paint on paper
27.75″ x 19.75″
TG 3858
Untitled, 1980
Ink, pastel and poster paint on paper
22.5" x 14.75"
TG 3856
Untitled, 1980
Pastel and poster paint on paper
29.5" x 22.5"
TG 3867
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
22.25” x 17”
TG 3903
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
15" x 11.75"
TG 3855
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
22” x 15.25”
TG 3898
Untitled, 1976
Ink on paper
13.75" x 19.5"
TG 3833
Untitled, 1977
Ink, pastel and poster paint on paper
18.75″ x 24.75″
TG 3847
Untitled, 1976
Ink on paper
18 3/4″ x 24 3/4″
TG 3841
Untitled, 1981
Ink and watercolor on paper
27.75” x 19.75”
TG 3878
Untitled, 1974
Ink and pastel on paper
29” x 21.5”
TG 3835
Untitled, 1981
Poster paint on paper
26.75″ x 32.75″
TG 3882
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
32 3/4″ x 26 3/4″
TG 3866
Untitled, 1978
Ink on paper
13.75" x 19.5"
TG 3848
Untitled, 1981
Watercolor on paper
15" x 10.5"
TG 3884
Untitled, 1975
Ink, pastel and graphite on paper
13" x 17"
TG 3431
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
21.5" x 27.25"
TG 3863
Untitled, 1980
Poster paint on paper
10.75" x 14.75"
TG 3873
Untitled, 1979
Watercolor and pastel on paper
19.75” x 27.75”
TG 3852
Untitled, 1981
Watercolor and poster paint on paper
19.5” x 15.5”
TG 3877
Untitled, 1980
Ink and poster paint on paper
9.75" x 6.75"
TG 3901
