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Arpita Singh (b. 1937)
Description
- Arpita Singh
- Classified File
- Signed and dated 'ARPITA SINGH/2007' lower right and further signed and dated 'ARPITA SINGH/2007' on reverse
Oil on canvas
- 36 by 36 in. (91.5 by 91.3 cm.)
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`s creative process is inspired by a great amalgam of sources. At first her canvases might seem simplistic or naïve but her works are narrative and semi-autobiographical in nature. Her canvases depict family, children, friends and neighbors surrounded by everyday objects such as fruit, plants and cars. Frequently these symbols of the mundane are numbered and titled, superimposed on calendar like grids or maps as if to impose the same artificial order to her canvases that as individuals we create in our own obsessively structured lives. Like these lives, her dense, multilayered canvases defy any single interpretation. The works can both humorous and disturbing, frequently revealing her own very personal vision of the family and the role of the female in contemporary Indian society.
Arpita trained as a textile designer at the Weavers Service Centers in Calcutta and New Delhi and this experience clearly influences the compositional structure of her canvases, but is the careful combination of whimsical compositions, her bold use of color and her confident control of her medium that reveal her extraordinary talent as a painter.
The current work is unusual in that females are almost entirely absent from the imagery of the work instead a male figure dressed in the garb of the businessman or politician dominates the canvas surrounded by the day-to-day slogans of family life. The exact interpretation of the image remains unclear but the figure appears to conceal a gun in his hand creating a feeling of disquiet within what at first glance appears to be such a calm image. This uneasy balance of domesticity and the violence of urban India has increasingly become a theme within Arpita's later works. '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.' (Gayathri Sinha, www.grosvenor gallery.com, artist's bio data.)