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Lot 54

 

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In Summer Months, Arpita Singh gives centre-stage to an ageing woman who reflects on the vagaries of time and the uncertainties of the future. The vulnerable, nude figure is surrounded by funerary images of aged men and women. An atmosphere of mourning pervades these figures. But amid this sadness are also objects and scenes of stark violence. Daggers rain down on the scene; viscera spill out of a body in the corner, and a gun is seen in... In Summer Months, Arpita Singh gives centre-stage to an ageing woman who reflects on the vagaries of time and the uncertainties of the future. The vulnerable, nude figure is surrounded by funerary images of aged men and women. An atmosphere of mourning pervades these figures. But amid this sadness are also objects and scenes of stark violence. Daggers rain down on the scene; viscera spill out of a body in the corner, and a gun is seen in the lower right, pointed toward the fallen body. Singh incorporates fragments of a calendar and phrases on the blue background.

Summer Months was first exhibited at Bose Pacia Modern, New York in 2003. The shift to a larger format during this period allowed Singh to play out her narratives in more detail. Critics observed that the role of the ageing woman becomes the dominant motif in her work from the early 2000s. In the exhibition catalogue for the show, artist Nilima Sheikh writes, "Arpita paints the ageing woman - as icon, as protagonist, baring the voluminous post-menopausal sexuality of her body, as cavernous as it is vulnerable." ("Of target-flowers, spinal cords, and (un)veilings," Memory Jars, New York: Bose Pacia Modern, 2003) Ella Datta echoes this, noting that "the ageing female body emerged as one of the telling metaphors of the poignancy of the passage of time." (Cobweb, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2010, p. 9)

The exhibition praised Singh, highlighting her as a leading contemporary Indian artist. According to critic Holland Cotter, "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." (Holland Cotter, "Art in Review; Arpita Singh," The New York Times, 3 October 2003)

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