Artist Profile :: Samarendra Raj Singh

26 November 2008

In partnership with Gallery Nature Morte, one of India’s premiere contemporary art spaces since 1997, Phillips de Pury & Company presents The Audience and the Eavesdropper: New Art from India & Pakistan, featuring 10 of the most influential and soughtafter artists working in India and Pakistan. The exhibition opens in London on 26 November 2008 and in New York on 20 January 2009.

Through 15 December 2008:
Phillips de Pury & Company
Howick Place London SW1P 1BB

From 20 January - 14 February 2009:
Phillips de Pury & Company
450 West 15 Street New York NY

Samarendra Raj Singh’s paintings reflect the visual cacophony of life in India and how this has found expression in its various art forms. Blending references to Western art, Eastern religions, and Indian decorative motifs, his paintings are unabashedly sumptuous and almost psychedelic. Utilizing a variety of media including holographic paper, metallic foils, acrylic and oil paints, Singh is able to weave dissonant and modern imagery into his compositions while miraculously preserving a sense of the traditional in his finished product. The title of the series, Holy Spangle, aptly describes Singh’s mix of the sacred with the vulgar in these works. Depictions of Indian art, including Chola and Vijayangar period statues of Hindu gods and footprints indicative of the Buddhist Buddhapada motif, coalesce with realistic portraits, textile designs and architectural detailing.

Samarendra Raj Singh, Holy Spangle, 2008

Abstraction and geometry play a strong role in these paintings. Singh melds his representational imagery within clock-like mechanisms of interlocking shapes and fluid patterns. Scratching and scribbling further distorts and connects his images, to create something akin to a narrative cartoon that has been cut apart and reassembled into a puzzle, very much similar to how one experiences the history of Indian cities while driving through their collage of buildings and monuments.

Samaraendra Raj Singh lives and works in New Delhi, India. For sale enquiries and more information about the artist please contact Veronica Collins, vcollins@phillipsdepury.com