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“Somehow, I have always had the belief that a primitive force exists within us. As individuals, we have to satisfy this instinct; we cannot escape it. As an artist, I try to distill into each of my lines my own stories of darkness.” - ARPITA SINGH

Arpita Singh’s pictorial vocabulary is largely influenced by the multiple histories she has witnessed and the narratives she has had a role in developing, ranging from the personal to the... “Somehow, I have always had the belief that a primitive force exists within us. As individuals, we have to satisfy this instinct; we cannot escape it. As an artist, I try to distill into each of my lines my own stories of darkness.” - ARPITA SINGH

Arpita Singh’s pictorial vocabulary is largely influenced by the multiple histories she has witnessed and the narratives she has had a role in developing, ranging from the personal to the national. “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 of 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, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2006, p. 1)

Her works are a celebration of “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 and Contemporary Indian Artists, Mumbai: India Book House, 2005, p. 84)

Singh’s multi-layered canvases are identifiable by their vibrant palette and the presence of recurring motifs, primarily of everyday domestic objects, where she manages to pack multiple incongruous ideas and emotions that defy any single interpretation. The richly worked surfaces are “built up in thick layers of paint” that are accompanied by “decorative motifs [that] appear to float freely in colour-saturated space. Often, she includes wide margins along the outer edges of her canvas. Her watercolours, in contrast, are delicate and translucent, influenced by the art of book illustration and illumination.” (Jhaveri, p. 84)

Singh’s canvases also show the impact of her engagement with the textile arts, particularly the traditional Kantha embroidery practiced by the women of rural Bengal, which she became familiar with during her early work at the Weavers’ Service Centre. She was drawn in by the manner in which each piece of fabric kept “pace with the imagination of the embroideress, ostensibly involved in recycling old saris into quilts, but giving free rein concurrently to her penchant for ornamentation and narration and fantasy.” (Deepak Ananth, Arpita Singh, Gurgaon: Penguin Studio and New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2015, p. 24) As a result, her works often reflect the textured nature of a weave or patchwork. “The relationship of Arpita Singh’s paintings to textiles, imitating with paint the textile crafts - weaving, stitchery, embroidery, tapestry - fosters a deceptive sense of comfort...the rhythm of the repeated elements in Singh’s paintings...while adding the lyricism of modern poetry or music, might also function as a sort of visible mantra, a means of transporting the artist - and perhaps the viewer - to another level of consciousness.” (Betty Seid ed., New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2007, p. 42)

One notices Singh’s “formal and thematic concerns” merging from the 1980s onwards. “Her paintings... are characterized by richly worked surfaces and sumptuous colour. The assured handling translates her abiding penchant for play, as does her iconographic repertory...The enigma of Singh’s work lies in the chiasmus between the affecting surface qualities of the paintings and the psychic withdrawal her figures seem to embody.” (Ananth, pp. 25-26)

An examination of Twenty-seven Ducks of Memory helps the viewer understand these characteristics better. People appear in the top corners of the present lot - on the left, a group of men ride an aeroplane, while on the right is a supine, nude figure which the artist employs in her later paintings as “icon, as protagonist, sometimes naked - baring the postmenopausal sexuality of her body, as cavernous as it is vulnerable.” (Nilima Sheikh, “Of target-flowers, spinal cords, and (un)veilings,” Arpita Singh: Memory Jars, New York: Bose Pacia Modern, 2003) Both images, indicating departures and ageing, underscore the significance of memories as an antidote to the passage of time.

The canvas is largely dominated by cloudy, dreamlike strokes - perhaps a representation of this nostalgia - that are embellished with the motifs of ducks and numbers from 1 to 27. These, in addition to a clock, indicate the “ceaseless march of calendar dates... Humans may struggle to control time, tracking it incessantly with numbers, but it pushes ahead ceaselessly as the natural world progresses irrespective of the human... The images on the edges of Singh’s pictures may function as footnotes or addendums to the main image, in these margins a fleeting thought or a whispered secret can be easily accommodated.” (Peter Nagy, “The Simplest of Means of Arpita Singh,” Arpita Singh: Memory Jars)

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