Untitled

Arpita Singh's free-floating compositions are evocative of styles used in Kantha embroidery, a practice which salvaged pieces of discarded or worn fabric painstakingly stitched to both hide the seams and unify the many compositional elements. Singh spent four years working as an art designer in both the Calcutta and Delhi Weavers' Service Centers. Possibly drawing on the Kantha tradition, her paintings consume the whole canvas sacrificing baseline and perspective for figural relationships and pattern. In this work, subject and composition are reduced to a series of conical shapes on a canvas, which flicker in and out of figuration with the offhand inclusion of a more curved line or awkward detail. Singh's more figurative pieces, often intensely personal and autobiographical, are a clear departure from her earlier abstract and monochromatic works. Nevertheless, she is able to preserve the delicate balance, composition and feeling of the early abstractions in this very different subject matter creating a unique and poignant art.