Lot 36
  • 36

Arpita Singh

Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Arpita Singh
  • Untitled
  • Signed and dated 'Arpita Singh/ 1999' lower right
  • Oil on canvas
  • 51ΒΌ by 48 in. (130.2 by 121.9 cm.)

Provenance

Acquired from a private collector, New Delhi

Condition

Good overall condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Arpita Singh is one of India's most important mid-generation artists following the Modernist Progressive era. At first glance Singh’s canvases appear whimsical, however, on closer inspection they often carry a more serious message. Both humorous and disturbing, Singh's paintings often highlight the role of women in contemporary Indian society.

Singh's subjects are drawn from family, friends, neighbours and everyday objects such as plants, fruit, cars and planes. Often these symbols of the mundane are numbered and titled in a map like format. Singh creates a journey within these maps, a narrative that often combines childhood memories and social commentary, feelings of isolation and dislocation, excitement and melancholy. 

In this painting Singh depicts a lone female figure seated on a pillow atop a lotus emerging from a sea of milk and flanked by a black hamsa and turtle. The iconography is derived from traditional representations of Vishnu and the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati. Lakshmi and Saraswati are typically depicted seated on a lotus pedestal, Saraswati usually dressed in a sari of purest white and accompanied by a hamsa. Here Vishnu is portrayed as his second avatar Kurma the tortoise which relates to the story of Samudra Manthan, the churning of the ocean of milk. The gods and demons came together to churn the ocean of milk to release amrita, the nectar of immortal life, and create the present universe. What is interesting here is Singh's rendering of the female figure. She is not shown as a young beautiful goddess but as a middle-aged woman, her body plump and her skin wrinkled. Singh's figure represents not only the goddess but also the woman and mother of the modern Indian household. ‘Arpita Singh has pushed the visual lexicon of the middle-aged woman further than almost any other woman artist. The anomaly between the aging body and the residue of desire, between the ordinary and the divine and the threat of the violent fluxes of the external world gives her work its piquancy and edge. At the same time she critiques the miasma of urban Indian life with suggestive symbols of violence that impinge on the sphere of the private, creating an edgy uncertainty.’ (Gayatri Sinha, www.grosvenorgallery.com, artist’s biography).

After graduating from the School of Art, Delhi Polytechnic, Singh became a designer at the Weaver's Service Centres in Calcutta and New Delhi. Her admiration and knowledge of textiles clearly influenced the texture, colour and pattern of her canvases. The floral borders in this painting echo those found on Indian embroideries. Singh has a particular interest in kantha, the traditional Bengali quilts, made of layers of saris intricately embroidered with scenes of everyday life. "The stitches in a kantha give body to the limp cloth, give it form. I feel that textures give strength to my painting - an added dimension." (Geeti Sen, Image and Imagination: Five Contemporary Artists in India, Ahmedabad, 1996, p. 98).

Singh was also greatly influenced by the work of Marc Chagall, not just in palette and composition but also in imagery. Like Chagall, she draws from folk sources and places her figures floating within an undefined space. "You cannot define space, whether it is earth or whether it is sky... indefinite boundary. That is very interesting to me." (Artist in conversation Susan Bean, Peabody Essex Museum, Herwitz Archive, 2011, cited in Susan Bean, Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence, London, 2013, p.182).