Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh was born in 1937 in what is now Bangladesh. In 1959, she graduated from the Delhi Polytechnic with a diploma in Fine Arts. Following her graduation, she worked for the Indian Government’s Cottage Industries Restoration Program where she met traditional artists and weavers in India who deeply influenced her artwork. 

Throughout her career Singh has assiduously studied the craft of painting alongside her absorption of modernist reductionism. Her style has shifted from black and white abstracts in the 1970s, to Bengali folk paintings in the 1980s, and later the watercolour on paper medium was replaced with oil on canvas.

Each of Singh’s drawings, watercolours, and oil paintings have a story to tell. Afflicted by the daily problems that are faced by women in her country and the world in general, Singh captures the range of emotions she encounters – from sorrow to joy and from suffering to hope. This consideration provides a view of the ongoing dialogue she maintains with these subjects. Ultimately, her paintings portray a woman’s point of view about life in India. 

Singh’s technique consists of layering and building up on the painted surface, both in oil and watercolour. The surface tension created by the overlapping patches of pigments and hues contributes to the tension between the scenes of domestic objects and scenes of violence and brutality. Described both as a modernist and figurative artist, Singh still makes it a point to stay tuned in to traditional Indian art forms and aesthetics, like miniaturist painting and different forms of folk art, employing them in her work regularly. These styles are visible in her use of perspective and the narrative of her paintings. 

Singh has displayed her work in over fifty solo and group exhibitions both in India and internationally, including the Pundole Art Gallery, Bombay; Foundation for Indian Artists, Amsterdam; Bose Pacia Modern, New York; M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards such as the Fellowship of Lalit Kala Akademi (2014); Padma Bhushan (2011); and Parishad Samman (1991). She lives and works in Nizamuddin East, New Delhi.