Drawing from life

Vadehra Art Gallery showcases for the first time sketches and drawings by artist Arpita Singh in an untitled solo exhibition in the capital

Figurative and modernist painter Arpita Singh is showcasing a collection of her sketches and drawings in a solo exhibition in the capital. These small format works which date from 1990 to 2015 offer a glimpse of both the preparatory and finished works by her.

Known for her large format oil works, Arpita says, “I had no plans to showcase my sketches as these are my initial works before transforming into larger canvases. I never thought them worthy of an exhibition, let alone a solo. But it was the idea of the gallery director and to my surprise, the response has been very good.”

Singh is known for her enigmatic works that offer a complex view of the world. Her influences range from politics, myth, memory and the inner lives of women to Bengali Kantha work and patachitra. Arpita shares, “My work is topical, reflecting India’s sectarian wars, its violence towards women and other social issues. Most of my work talks about life and reflects its surroundings. It is not critiquing but the aim is to begin a conversation with the viewers.”

Her works seem to indicate that beneath the surface of beauty, there are disturbing undercurrents and it is best to bring them out in the open. She says, “Through my works I directly react to the shattering reality of the world outside. I try and capture every aspect of life. You will see the timeless, serene and unrushed world in my paintings created using earthy colours invaded by daggers, guns, cars, arrows and airplanes. They address a stoic acceptance of contemporary life’s complexity and contradiction.”

The collection on display includes monochromatic, small-format works that also include poems, texts and maps. Her use of the line — broken, fragmented or staccato, which may resemble a map or an ECG — offers a completely different way of viewing her works from her highly finished paintings. The intimate format of the sketchbooks offers a view of the work process as well as personal evolution of the artist.

In her work titled Four Men, politicians in white kurta pajamas sit and talk; while Leaping Bridge refers to the partition and the Ramayana showing an unnatural line running through a map and dividing it into two sections; and her recent work Chasing Away an Animal reflects the present day situation of the country with a dead cow painted in red. “This is how partition divided the country — the Line of Control even cut through people’s kitchens. The golden deer from the Ramayan leaps across the border.

From a distance, the picture appears as though it is a patchwork fabric with cross-stitch; or a barbed wire; or even an ECG reading — depending on your perspective.” In recent times, Singh’s use of text to create forms and the origami shapes that she has developed are also on display. Arpita says, “Although these sketches are mostly preparatory images for my oils, they are dense and stretch across the paper like memories. I like to play with geometrical, fragmented forms that looks like dense newspapers or maps.”