Her Mind Lives in a Palace
Recent works by Ekta Singha
New Delhi, July 5th 2021: Presented by Anant Art gallery Her Mind Lives in a Palace is an online, solo show featuring works by Ekta Singha at www.anantart.com
Her mind is as blank as an empty room,
Surrounded with rain walls,
She lives with emotions that break her everyday,
Her mind lives in a palace which is built up of false promises.
Ekta Singha’s recent body of work continues her exploration with familial nostalgia and a yearning for a bygone era. As a second generation Bengali migrant from Bangladesh, Ekta delves into the collective memory of her family’s past to recreate a reservoir of memories, from which she extracts her imagery. The current series of paintings, done on handmade Nepali paper pasted on wasli are an overlay of images of maps, landscapes and patterns reminiscent of her princely home; the occupants of which are depicted like faint shadows, neither hinting their arrival or departure. These images are held together with fragments of text that guide the viewer into her memory palace.
The artist draws from the rich tradition of miniature paintings as well as the poetic lyricism of Bengal school to create her own language, intertwined with personal narratives. In the present series of work, we see a playful treatment of the decorative borders and jali work found in Mughal Miniatures that guide the viewer's gaze as well as give a glimpse into her world. These works are an extension of her series Still Find Some Place Anyway [2019] which conveyed the optimism of finding an abode in a foreign land, following which Her Mind Lives in a Palace becomes a sequel taking the conversation inwards, investigating intimate desires that long to relive the relinquished and forgotten past.
About the Artist:
Ekta Singha [b. 1991, Kolkata] completed her Bachelors in Visual Arts [Painting] from Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata [2012] and did a Masters in Visual Art [Painting] with a specialization in Mural from Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara [2015]. She has received various awards including FICA Emerging Artist Award [2020] and has participated in numerous residencies including Utsha Foundation for Contemporary Art in Bhubaneshwar [2018], Kalakriti Art Residency in Hyderabad [2018], and 58th National Art Exhibition of Lalit Kala Akademi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru [2017]
Ekta’s solo exhibition A Note on Remembrance was held at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad [2019]. She has participated in various group shows across the country including, To Heal We Must Remember, curated by Tara Sabharwal at Kala Chaupal- The Environmental Situational Room [2021]; Telling Tales: A journey into narrative forms, Anant Art Gallery, New Delhi [2020]; Luminously Between Entities, curated by Waswo X Waswo at Gallery ARK, Vadodara [2018]; PERSPECTA, presented by Gallery 88, Kolkata [2018]; Alchemy of Memory, Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad [2018]; Persistence of Memory, Akara Art Gallery, India Art Fair [2018], amongst others. She is also the co-founder of Young Art Support Platform that was established in 2020 to support artistic practices during the pandemic.
The artist currently lives and works in Vadodara, India.
About Anant Art gallery:
Established in early 2000s, Anant Art Gallery has been one of the leading galleries focusing on contemporary South Asian art practices. Since its first show, it has engaged with leading multidisciplinary artists, providing multiple venue exhibitions, residencies and art fair representations. With a cross-section of both young and senior artists, the gallery currently represents Aisha Khalid, Probir Gupta, Ghulam Mohammad, Digbijayee Khatua, Abhishek Narayan Verma, Arslan Farooqi, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Rehana Mangi and Dhara Mehrotra, in India.
The show will be on view from 5th July to 5th August, 2021 at www.anantart.com
For further information or queries, please email us at contact@anantart.com, or call us at +91-9205809630