Seminal to Singh`s work is the presence of what seems to be an uneasy union of diametrically opposed subject matter. Here a holiday atmosphere collides head on with threats of violence, death and human frailty. Two women are separated by the textured, blue expanse of the canvas, one in obvious holiday mode, complete with beach wear, the other exposing all the signs of aging and decay. However, a peculiar transmutation of...
Seminal to Singh`s work is the presence of what seems to be an uneasy union of diametrically opposed subject matter. Here a holiday atmosphere collides head on with threats of violence, death and human frailty. Two women are separated by the textured, blue expanse of the canvas, one in obvious holiday mode, complete with beach wear, the other exposing all the signs of aging and decay. However, a peculiar transmutation of imagery seems to occur and there is a surprising frequency with which a phenomenon threatens to disintegrate into its Other. For example, the round image located at the upper end of the canvas doubles up as both beach ball and ammunition.
"The pleasure and ploy of ornamentation is both celebration and disguise. She scrapes and repaints: inexorably bringing to life, tending, a surface she fears might be dull… Yet more often than not the motifs offered are funerary … About living inspite of dying. About enacting death. In Arpita`s painting is that different from enacting living?" (p. 5, Nilima Sheikh, "Of target-flowers, spinal cords, and unveilings", Arpita Singh, Memory Jars, Bose Pacia, 2003)