Arpita Singh’s language of subtlety

Over the past 60 years or so, Arpita Singh has created works of great significance, enriching the contemporary art scene with a modernist approach. She is rightly acknowledged today as one of the finest artists, after Amrita Sher-Gil, to have produced works in her own pictorial language, touching upon the day-to-day life of the middle class, especially women, with subtle suggestions of their challenges and concerns.

Despite the dense, layered compositions with multiple figures and motifs, she also paints the vast expanses of sky, the sun, moon, stars, and the flora and fauna that nature keeps offering all the time, whether we are aware of them or not. She never lets ‘life’ be confined and keeps pointing out the spaces that are there for our solace and bliss.

Violence, in terms of wars and societal brutalities, has been a subject she has dealt with. With a certain assertion, she has always stood against violence of any creed or kind. The questions of mortality and existential queries find their place in her drawings and paintings. This is particularly evident in a scene of burial, with a mourning group of men and women. Yet, it is life that comes alive in her works in all its myriad hues.

Arpita is able to construct upon the radiance that life provides us, in whatever conditions we are. Thus, her works move us on many levels, and she is able to upgrade and uphold life as such, elevating the ordinary, with a startling sensory intensity and yet soothing serenity.

Arpita’s interest in crafts, textiles, certain folk motifs, and street scenes is notable, as is her interest in miniature styles. While replete with objects, figures and symbols, the spatial experience isn’t linear, challenging typical hierarchies, and suggesting a fluidity of memory, identity and belonging. The female figures are both powerful and vulnerable. Soft, nurturing symbols like flowers and animals are juxtaposed with stark, sometimes violent, imagery.

Her art seems to navigate both personal and political landscapes. All this lends an aesthetic feel and visual delight to her uniquely carved pictorial style. For her, the daily art practice — to paint and draw — seems like waves from a flowing river, which takes its course, turns, and twists from time to time, yet remains the same river.

Arpita Singh’s works have become recognisable from afar. Her retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum about two years back showed that her oeuvre is really rich, emotive, and powerful.

My acquaintance with Arpita Singh goes back to the late Sixties, and we have known each other closely. Arpita did my portrait in 1995 on board, and I have always cherished the friendly relations we share. We used to exchange books for reading. Once, she returned a book, and I found in it a drawing of a cow. I called her and told her, “Arpitaji, I have found a cow belonging to you, but I will not return it.” She replied wittily, “But where are you going to keep her?” I told her, “Oh, I’ll find a place somewhere on the wall.” Then we both laughed heartily.

I have always been amazed by her craving for creating so many large as well as small works on paper and canvas, documenting her feelings and emotions of the times we are living in.

With an amalgam of personal, societal and cultural elements, with layers of tension and tenderness, Arpita Singh’s works captivate the viewer. Her presence in contemporary Indian art is to be celebrated and heralded.

— The New Delhi-based writer is a poet and art critic

BESTSELLER, YET AGAIN!

The artist is the only woman among top 10 in Hurun India Art List 2024

Arpita Singh ranks third on the recently released Hurun India Art List 2024. In this, she retains her position “as the most successful woman artist”. She has been figuring on the list since 2019. Her artworks have achieved cumulative sales of Rs 23 crore. This turnover, according to the Hurun Research Institute, is based on the auction value for the year. “Maintaining her artistic prominence, Singh’s remarkable achievement is underlined by the sale of six lots of her artwork throughout the year. Her most expensive painting, ‘Watching’ (2004), significantly contributed to her overall sales, further cementing her status as a leading figure in contemporary Indian art. It is a testament to her artistic vision and mastery, attracting significant attention and commanding high value in the art market,” a press release by Hurun India said.

A figurative artist and a modernist, Arpita Singh is celebrated in India as well as abroad. She was born in 1937 in Kolkata. Her family relocated to Delhi in 1946, where she has since lived and worked. She graduated with a diploma in fine arts from Delhi Polytechnic. She is married to painter Paramjit Singh. The artist has won several awards, including the Parishad Samman from the Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi, in 1991; the Kalidas Samman, Bhopal, in 1991; and the Padma Bhushan in 2011. — TNS