Spandan: The Art Of Sangeeta Singh
By: Sushma K Bahl : Arts advisor, Curator, Writer
Influenced by the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and the political ideas of Karl Marx in the late 19th and early 20th century, contemporary theorists often analyze the arts through a view finder that looks into the private world of the creator’s mind, beyond the realms of purely cerebral and rational. Much of the amazing and somewhat intriguing imagery in this genre, categorized as surrealist art, challenges the established and traditionally fostered notions of beauty, as it culls visuals from the subconscious human mind, breaking free of the confines of logic. Sangeeta Singh’s art works in this finely executed collection of paintings that please the eye, touch the heart, and challenge the mind; seem to befit the surrealist ethos, as they also capture the essence of her heartbeat or Spandan, depending on one’s ways of seeing.
The Roots & Routes Reflective of the artist’s roots, the ensemble traces the routes that she has trekked to-date. Born 1968 in Lucknow, Sangeeta, passed her postgraduate degrees in Chemistry and Education from the University of Lucknow, but then changed the course to pursue her passion and learn painting more out of choice rather than as a profession. The lush green open cantonment areas that she grew up in, given that her father was in the army, and later for several years more, having got married to an army officer, and the extensive travels through different regions that this involved, has given her wide exposure to a multitude of cultures. Mother of two young people, the artist, has taken it all in her stride as reflected in her finely rendered engaging imagery, the inspiration for which comes from “what I experience and see all around me in everyday life”, she clarifies.
There are imprints of her earlier track and scientific studies that make a discreet appearance in the finesse and execution of her work. Her artistic rendezvous has meandered through a series of learning experiences and apprenticeships, for two years under senior Aizawl- Mizoram artists R. Thansanga & Thlangrokhuma, then working with contemporary artist Ebenezer for a while, and finally training in painting for six years under the expert guidance of eminent artist Rameshwar Broota at Triveni Kala Sangam. She also studied art appreciation at the National Museum Institute in Delhi. Continuing to work and experiment with perseverance and devotion she brings a freshness and refinement to her creations and shares her knowledge and skills with others by teaching art to young learners and aspiring artists. Sangeeta has already made a mark for herself with nearly fifty exhibitions held to-date across India and internationally. This includes three shows in Austria including one at Winter Sports Museum there, and later at Muzeum Gallery in Slovenia, Hungary, amongst others.
Much of her fervent and somewhat startling visuals are reflective of her personal and social surroundings and experiences including her recent work which is ‘Gurgaon-Generic’ where she currently lives. Having spent most of her younger life in smaller cities and open cantonment areas, she has had to reconcile with the culture of ‘ever growing construction frenzy metro cities constantly on the move’. The Millennium City, with its high-rise buildings that lack human face as well as green space to live and breathe in, and attendant social isolation and urban angst all get mirrored in her work. The rickshaw pullers, that ferry her around negotiating through traffic.
signals on busy road with heaps of building material lying around, have helped the artist make peace with what had confounded and scared her to start with. There are lonesome shadows of street-life, and quiet impressions of wistful dreams. The grey skyline and concrete skyscrapers, offset by a tiny self-portrait beside a solitary green potted-plant, standing in the balcony ‘hurled upwards in the sky’ as if wanting to fly away in search of the lush, green cantonments, that she has had the joy of living in, in the past.
The Aesthetics The varied exposures that the artist has had in the course of her life get interwoven in her aesthetics. The visuals represent partly her ethereal dream-land and spring partly from her colorful real-life encounters. The subjects and compositions appear in a culturally rooted iconography reflecting Sangeeta’s varied experiences as an individual, a woman, mother and a citizen. The unusual juxtaposition of metaphors, from the interior and exterior worlds, seems to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious in these works. In a unique blend of art and science, her surrealistic genre appears in distinct palette, texture and compositions. There are undercurrents of forlorn urban life and familiar objects in the gender sensitive ethos of her imaginatively composed expressions. Of particular interest is her play with shadows, grids and objects that wrap her imagery with an air of mystery, in aesthetics that seize the viewer’s attention while also engage one in some introspection.
Silent and mysterious, partly photorealistic and part surrealist, her aesthetics focus on contemporary urban discord. Using computer graphics she portrays innocent street life through a view finder of rickshaw pullers and stray dogs and their shadows. There are aerial views of built up cityscapes, flocks of birds up in the sky, swings and games associated with children, watchful eyes and stretched out hands, patterns and folds of fabric and floor that create optical illusion, women’s night dress and bags floating in the air; in an intriguing mix and match of imagery, as if in search of some relief from the choked confines of sedative city existence. The creative process seems like an outlet for self expression or may be an inward journey of awakening for the artist.
With a keen sense of observation Sangeeta has moved on to a conceptual imagery, initially having indulged in a more realistic genre. Her work represents people and elucidates their emotions, through juxtaposition of metaphors, rather than through figuration or portraiture. Where human figure appears in her repertoire, it is always faceless and only in a profile and mostly as limbs hands, feet or eyes. In her current artistic framework, the night dress stands for feminine domain where as bags and rickshaws denote people on the move. Most of her aesthetics though entail the use of a ‘defined object or form’ such as high rise structures or swings in a park, though for some expressions she has taken recourse to abstraction including a shadow play. Her choice of colours is expressive not only of the underlying emotions or ideas but also the energy that triggers the work as in the series featuring bags in various stages of unfolding in red and yellow where, “I have used colours to show energy”. There are other works where all the three elements are knit together in one unified aesthetic expression.
The Mode Media Method Sangeeta enjoys creating large format canvases though she also finds working on small sized expressions engaging. She paints in oil on canvas, makes drawings on paper, and alsocreates mixed media art and installations. Images initially captured in camera for study, are deconstructed using computer graphics, then re-figured into drawings and paintings diligently composed in layers of oil paint that also endow the work with a distinct and subtle texture. Her work plays with ideas, memories, and real life experiences. Technically accomplished, it takes her at least a month to complete one painting. The artist’s imagination comes through in fervent visuals, mirroring the emotions, spaces and people encountered through the journeys undertaken. An aura of silence, a sense of melancholia and undercurrents of mystery mark the surreal-toned work.
Traveling around and photographing, she explores styles, mediums, and themes, as she builds a resource bank of images that she then works from, by applying computer-graphics to evolve her forms, as figured in these intriguing compositions. “I capture a lot of images in my camera as I see them, then study and work on them later with computer-graphics to give them my own interpretation in these paintings.” She works diligently to develop her compositions in layers of painted forms that entail empty space carefully integrated within or around the main image. “My creativity is always aroused by the locale, persuading me to smear them with colours.” There is a fine combination of intuition and technique, in a fusion of striking palette within subtle colours in her expressions. And on the recurrent use of shadows that play hide and seek, in her imagery the artist explains, “I am intrigued by the shadows. They speak to me of a world that seems more real than the actual forms”. The subjects and narratives culled from her immediate surroundings, represent the familiar world where individuals often find themselves alone even amidst crowds.
The artist’s style involves creating an optical illusion around her work. Repetitive lines, patterns, symbols, forms, objects, and spaces, precariously placed are carefully coloured and moulded to define her visuals as in Op art. A vigorous deployment of abstraction and design combined with a philosophical layering, help to create an atmospheric illusion. A sense of movement created through geometric patterns, in black and white and in colours, is evident in her conversation series that also generate mystery.
The Ensemble Spandan is an ensemble of around fifty of Sangeeta Singh’s recent art works mostly as oil on canvas but also some drawings on paper and an installation. There are twelve different series that include some colourfully painted canvases and some black and white drawings and the installation with umbrellas. Reverberating around a diverse range of themes, her choice collection entails a range of ideas and emotions, each focusing on a different aspect of human existence. The saga is her tribute to the rainy season that brings some relief to the parched land and renews life as green landscapes begin to grow and flourish again.
One of the recurrent elements in Sangeeta’s art is the stray, unkempt, and uncared for street dog. It is her attempt to document the plight of the innocent creature that wanders around the city, in search of some crumbs to eat or shade to relax. Sitting atop heaps of concrete rubbish and construction materials and frames and in one case over the street lights, the dog looks majestic and unmindful of the surrounding hustle and bustle. The treatment meted out to man’s faithful companion, appears at odds with the settings it is featured in, such as the one where it sits atop an umbrella floating in the sky, that endows the work with a surrealist demeanor.
Her leitmotif, the rickshaw-puller dialoguing ‘Chal Chala Chal’ with his own shadow, as he sweeps across the dust-laden roads is another repetitive motif that lends her expressions a contemplative aura. This is the travel mode that she and many others like her often take recourse to, to get around the new townships where they make their homes, be it Dwarka, Gurgaon, Noida, Thane or other far flung areas around mega Indian cities. And the cycle rickshaw puller who is forced to make the journey away from his family and home in a remote Indian village; shifts his base to these new areas only to eke out a living. Thus both the groups represent the notion of migration, though each from a different perspective and vantage point. They also head in different direction onto their separate journey of life, as their paths connect them briefly at the crossroad. This meeting of two different strands is evocatively represented in works where their shadows merge with one another through rear view mirror of a passing car. The rickshaw man’s under nourished profile, dressed in a shirt with bright checks, his rough feet with chappals falling off point to a hard life full of struggle. And the artist wonders philosophically if it is she who is taking the rickshaw driver to his destination or it is he who is taking her to hers.
The aerial view from the window of a plane, flying over high rise blocks of a built up city, is an attempt to escape from the anonymity in an otherwise busy and crowded place sans any green. The piles of construction material littered aside tall buildings with luxurious housing blocks in grid lines are set against colours and patterns on mosaic floor, man with shopping bags, spider and other motifs elsewhere, for added interest. There are rows of cars, street lights, and metro pillars but no peace and no space for greenery.
Gender based issues is another subject that moves the artist. Using bags and garments as signifiers of gender, she paints a woman’s night-dress flying off up into the sky. The mystic garment that holds on its own, standing up against the strong winds, signals her mental resolve. The full sized night gown as if pregnant set against a smaller embryonic flower shaped pink garment, intricately drawn, suggests sexuality and transformation of a girl into a young lady. The corset shaped form, stairs and trees sprouting out of arm straps and other elements are added for visual effect in rhythm with the theme of the composition. The bags in various shapes and sizes open up as birds buzz out like bees or prisoners out of a cage. There are euphoric images of red and green bags in sitting and reclining postures, and there are fallen bags in black and white. The composition featuring flying birds covering the skyline, include an oval shaped centrally placed sunset in yellow, painted over natural brown earth. The series is suggestive of euphoria of people constantly on the move, the hustle and bustle of life and one’s desire to seek freedom from confinement.
Her motherly instincts come to play in works featuring children’s parks and swings. The snakes and ladders and crossword, the games people play innocently for fun are set alongside adult hands protruding out from the side to denote children as they come of age. These and some of the other works with open bags and birds flying away were prompted by her son’s departure from home for further studies, signifying the reality of life as children leave the nest to face the big open world. There are some amazing and intriguing works bursting with energy and drama in the repertoire, such as those featuring ‘eyes within’ and other stand alone compositions such as the lonesome computerized figure or the one standing beside the lamp-post or the zigzag lines of flocks of birds, or the feet protruding out of the lined and patterned quilt. Spandan collection aptly surmises the sense of mystery and surrealist ethos that Sangaeeta Singh’s art currently stands for.
Note: The quotes in the text are from the writer’s conversations with the artist.