Important Notice

Arpita Singh's body of figurative work frequently draws on the private and public lives of women like herself, and by the external events that act on them. Like these lives, her dense, multilayered canvases defy any single interpretation. As critic Holland Cotter observed, "The psychological and the political merge in paintings by New Delhi artist Arpita Singh. So do everyday life and allegory, expressionism and ornament, historical sources from... Arpita Singh's body of figurative work frequently draws on the private and public lives of women like herself, and by the external events that act on them. Like these lives, her dense, multilayered canvases defy any single interpretation. As critic Holland Cotter observed, "The psychological and the political merge in paintings by New Delhi artist Arpita Singh. So do everyday life and allegory, expressionism and ornament, historical sources from Bengal folk painting to Marc Chagall, and a formal approach that is at once unassuming and hard-worked, gauche and poised" (The New York Times, 3 October, 2003).

Meticulously constructed from vivid layers of oil paint, manipulated to expose a diversity of subjects and motifs, the present lot weaves a sense of the magical into the mundane day-to-day life of Singh's female protagonist. As she sleeps, a bright dreamscape unfolds around her; a garden with a pink bench and a flowering tree takes over the painted surface, edging out the cars and people from her waking life. The sole male figure that remains in the bright yellow garden likely represents a fond memory, while the tree shedding its numbered leaves is indicative of the units of time that have cruelly passed the couple by.

"As Arpita grew both as an artist and as a person, the reality of the larger world, its history and geography, began invading the play world of her picture space. Her dream-time had to make space for real time which then elided into imagined times of the past and the future. Similarly, the public sphere jostled into her private realm. The contrary pulls gave rise to some iconic paintings" (Ella Datta, "Of Loss & Recovery", Cobweb: Arpita Singh, Vadehra Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2010, p. 6).

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