Important Notice

Arpita Singh’s body of work is frequently inspired by the private and public lives of women, particularly her own, and the external events that have an effect on them. Like these lives, her dense, multilayered canvases defy any single interpretation. The collection of familiar objects and people on her canvases, painted in strong colours and arranged in specific patterns is reminiscent of decorative Kantha embroidery, a style Singh became... Arpita Singh’s body of work is frequently inspired by the private and public lives of women, particularly her own, and the external events that have an effect on them. Like these lives, her dense, multilayered canvases defy any single interpretation. The collection of familiar objects and people on her canvases, painted in strong colours and arranged in specific patterns is reminiscent of decorative Kantha embroidery, a style Singh became familiar with during her stint as a textile designer at the Weavers` Service Centers in Calcutta and New Delhi.

While they may at first appear esoteric and even stylistically naive, each of Singh’s paintings has an important story to tell. Her works “…celebrate the rituals of family life while questioning the myth of cosy domesticity. Her palette is brightly coloured and exuberant, but her themes can be dark and daunting. She paints people she knows – family, friends, neighbours – surrounded by an assortment of everyday objects. Flowers, teapots, and pillows appear alongside guns, knives, and aeroplanes” (Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern & Contemporary Indian Artists, India Book House, Mumbai, 2005, p.84).

In the present lot, a large, vivid and densely packed canvas, Singh builds up her surface with several layers of paint amongst which her many icon-like motifs and numerals float. At the very center, an aged, lady reclines on a pink mat, languidly juggling the various cast members of her life in her multiple arms. Amongst the detritus she is surrounded by, are moving cars, planes, calendar pages, numbered lists, tea cups, a flowing river and lotus blossoms. Conflating the domestic and the public through her combination of these images, the artist alludes to the passage of time and its effects on her female subject’s life and body, as well as to the several comings and goings, birth and deaths, she has been witness to and shaped by.

“Memories and mappings of dislocations and discoveries, of nostalgia and pain, of excitement and anxiety have surged through her images. But Arpita Singh also responds to other dynamics in the world, to the interface between time and space, between history and present context. In fact, she absorbs the complexities of the world and represents them in her own distinct way through the sensuous use of paint and brush, signaling joy, wonder, menace and melancholy in an intricate kaleidoscope of human emotions” (Ella Datta, “Of history, context and location”, Picture Postcard, Vadehra Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2006, p. 1).

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