In Arpita Singh’s canvas, richness of detail, depth of meaning

Born in pre-Partition Bengal, Singh, who moved to Delhi as a child, witnessed first-hand the brutal realities of a newly independent nation. Was this why, in her work, she rejected clear binaries and hierarchies, placing violence and beauty, the domestic and the political, within the same frame?

There is an elasticity to her work, which expands with meaning the more time one spends with it.

2 min readNov 11, 2026 06:15 AM IST First published on: Nov 11, 2026 at 06:15 AM IST

A painting is, to begin with, a mark on paper. Distinctions of genre and form are an overlay, not an organic feature of the artwork. Or so suggests the vast and infinitely imaginative oeuvre of Arpita Singh, who died this week at the age of 90. Over the course of her decades-long career, as she reinvented herself, exploring new ways of expressing, Singh created richly detailed, almost tapestry-like works that invited multiple viewings.

Born in pre-Partition Bengal, Singh, who moved to Delhi as a child, witnessed the brutal realities of a newly independent nation. Was this why, in her work, she rejected clear binaries and hierarchies, placing violence and beauty, the domestic and the political, within the same frame? Her voracious reading and her training at the Weavers’ Service Centre in Kolkata also led to the collapse of such walls in her work where a five-armed goddess in widow’s whites (one of her many powerful feminine figures) might be found brandishing a pistol at a man dressed in a bureaucrat’s black coat. Or where Yudhishthira may ascend to heaven seated on an aeroplane (accompanied by the faithful dog, Dharma in disguise). She even made room for words, a gesture to a time when, for want of affordable paper, she began painting on printed catalogues.

There is an elasticity to her work, which expands with meaning the more time one spends with it. It is this quality that gives her style — fabular, observant and impatient with any logic but her own — such fluidity, making it contemporary and timeless.