Man and the world: Exhibition incites contemplation

New Delhi: One glance at Sujata Singh's richly coloured painting of a woman carrying water in earthen pots inadvertently evokes an image of an Indian village.

Delve deeper and the heads protruding out of the efficiently balanced pots, seem to be telling a more meaningful story of how the woman who walks miles every day to fetch water for her folks carries, with the pots, the responsibility of the well being of her loved ones.

This rich specimen of figurative art by Singh is a part of an ongoing art exhibition at the British Council here.

Titled "Parallel Dimesions," the exhibition showcases the intrinsic relationship between man and the surrounding world while digging into the complexities of the societal structure.

Besides Singh, artistes Ananda Moy Banerji and Kristine Michael are also a part of the show.

All three have been trained in the United Kingdom at formative stages of their creative careers.

With artworks in myriad media such as painting, printmaking, ceramics and drawings, the exhibition is an attempt to blur the distinction between fine art, craft and illustration and serves to demonstrate the potential of diverse media and techniques of art-making.

For Singh, who currently teaches art at the British School here, life in India has perennially been a source of inspiration.

"I am very inspired by India. I am very inspired by the symbols used in India," she says.

The Delhi-based illustrator expresses a keen interest in the human form and its pictographic and figurative qualities.

The figures in her work are often set against a brightly hued background.

"It is figurative art. What I take from India is the colour, the people and the patterns, but I have tried to make it a little contemporary," she says.

Her experimentation with the traditional form of painting is conspicuous in her conscious attempt to transform the human form into a metaphor to express the trivia of the daily as well as enumerate historical cultural narratives, much like the painting of the woman carrying water in earthen pots.

A small section of Singh's collection is dedicated to her commissioned works, ones that she painted for people on request, among which was an outline sketch in ink titled "Aldgate East." .