Arpita Singh: Remembering
“Remembering draws from old memories from which these works emerged. Whether I am aware or not, there is something happening at my core. It is how my life flows.”
– Arpita Singh
Remembering is the first solo institutional exhibition of Arpita Singh outside India, featuring key works selected in close collaboration with the artist from her prolific career spanning more than six decades. Singh’s paintings centre on her emotional and psychological state, drawing from Bengali folk art and Indian stories, interwoven with experiences of social upheaval and global conflict.
The exhibition at Serpentine North traces Singh’s luminous works from the 1960s to recent years, showcasing her large-scale oil paintings as well as her more intimate watercolours and ink drawings. Remembering presents the artist’s exploration of Surrealism, figuration, abstraction, and her inspiration from Indian Court paintings. Since the 1990s, Singh has increasingly explored themes of motherhood, the aging female form, feminine sensuality, vulnerability, and violence, demonstrating the impact of relationships and external events on the emotional and psychological landscape of the artist.
Her works are intimate portrayals of domestic and inner life but are equally concerned with the experiences of women navigating the outside world. Resisting singular interpretation, Arpita Singh explores an omnipresent tension that arises from weaving together labyrinthine cityscapes with observations of unsettling historical events and everyday life.
Artist biography
Arpita Singh was born in 1937 in Baranagar, then Bengal Presidency, now West Bengal, and moved to New Delhi with her family in 1946 where she has since lived and worked. Singh is a pioneering artist of post-independence era India and has influenced generations of artists, thinkers, and creatives. After graduating in Fine Arts from Delhi Polytechnic in 1959, she worked as a textile designer at the Weaver’s Service Centre, part of the Handloom Board of India. Singh regularly exhibited with fellow artists Nilima Sheikh, Nalini Malani, and Madhvi Parekh.
Singh’s work has been regularly exhibited in India and internationally, including the 2019 retrospective Submergence: In the Midst of Here and There at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. The artist has been included in group exhibitions at the Barbican, UK (2024); Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (2022); Centre Pompidou, France (2021); M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2021–2023); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Spain (2013); Peabody Essex Museum, USA (2013); Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan (2012); and Royal Academy of Arts, UK (1982). She has also participated in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2022); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2021); Asia Society Triennial, USA (2020–21); Havana Biennial, Cuba (1986); and Triennale–India (1975, 1978). She was awarded a fellowship at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India in 2014 and was honoured with several awards, including the Padma Bhushan (2011); the Parishad Samman from the Sahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi (1991); and the Kalidas Samman, Bhopal (1991).
