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Lot Essay
A seated figure sometimes seated against a background of alphabets strung together to sometimes form words are familiar iconographic elements from Arpita Singh's oeuvre. For her, it is the process of painting and creating that is of primary importance and not the recognizable forms that result. "I don't see them as people, they are forms to me. Because they are human forms they must have some familiar things like eyes, nose and so on. Sometimes when I begin I don't even know if it is going to be a man or a woman." (In conversation with Neville Tuli, The Flamed Mosaic - Indian Contemporary Painting, Ahemedabad, 1997, p. 388.)
She is most comfortable with incorporating familiar, everyday images into her work, which is why she is drawn towards the seated figure. "I like to paint, draw the most familiar, what I see everyday, know it, live it, otherwise I cannot draw. This thing of people sitting, perhaps my life is like that... perhaps painting is a way of understanding these things, like when you are a child and are practicing handwriting, that is your way of understanding the alphabets and letters..." (ibid, p. 387.)
She is most comfortable with incorporating familiar, everyday images into her work, which is why she is drawn towards the seated figure. "I like to paint, draw the most familiar, what I see everyday, know it, live it, otherwise I cannot draw. This thing of people sitting, perhaps my life is like that... perhaps painting is a way of understanding these things, like when you are a child and are practicing handwriting, that is your way of understanding the alphabets and letters..." (ibid, p. 387.)