Arpita Singh
(1937)
Untitled
Arpita Singh's works are replete with disparate images and references, blurring the line between real and surreal, actuality and fantasy. The viewer is forced to examine each object and symbol and create a narrative entirely of their own imagination, guided by the artist. Nilima Sheikh aptly summarises her style: "…it is important for her to invent, everyday. And still it would not be a contradiction to say that for Arpita…repetition is the warp...
Arpita Singh's works are replete with disparate images and references, blurring the line between real and surreal, actuality and fantasy. The viewer is forced to examine each object and symbol and create a narrative entirely of their own imagination, guided by the artist. Nilima Sheikh aptly summarises her style: "…it is important for her to invent, everyday. And still it would not be a contradiction to say that for Arpita…repetition is the warp of invention. She uses it to lay the ground field of her world. The rhythms of repetition form structure and continuity within her paintings and between them. She puts no premium on originality, realizing in her wisdom that it would be a straitjacket, redundant when she needs all her resources to garner new means to cope with the world at her doorstep: to invent strategies of survival-terms of acceptance and/or resistance in the grim, funny and beautiful business of day-to-day living" (Arpita Singh: Memory Jars, New Paintings and Watercolors, Bose Pacia Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 2003, pg. 2). Singh uses a wide range of visual stimuli in her works. The present lot juxtaposes various elements and characters, ranging from chairs, carpets and potted plants to playing cards, bottles and fruit. These fantastical and theatrical sets, marked by their ambiguous sense of scale and perspective, conflate interior and exterior, private and public. Neatly arranged rows of bottles and flowers appear to grow from two bright orange carpets, and the images of three kings, picked from a deck of playing cards and firmly planted in the ground, seem to be carrying on a conversation around them. Largely indecipherable, this motley crew of inanimate articles exists in "…an enchanted world where objects, humans, and vegetation are all imbued with a magical life…Fruits, flowers, boats, and figures all achieve an equal significance in animated manifestations. They dissolve into one another, life metamorphosing into life, creating a magical symbiosis" (Yashodhara Dalmia, "Arpita Singh: Of Mother Goddesses and Women", Expressions and Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996, pg. 70).
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Lot
86
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90
MODERN EVENING SALE | NEW DELHI, LIVE
4 SEPTEMBER 2014
Estimate
Rs 40,00,000 - 50,00,000
$66,670 - 83,335
Winning Bid
Rs 48,00,000
$80,000
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
Arpita Singh
Untitled
Signed and dated in English (lower right and verso)
1971
Oil on canvas
42.5 x 42.5 in (108 x 108 cm)
PROVENANCE: An Esteemed Private Collection, India
Category: Painting
Style: Figurative
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'