Mohan Singh

On a visit, as a child, to the holy pilgrimage centre of Varanasi, Mohan Singh was mesmerised by the city __ its narrow lanes, its liminal spaces, its shrines and its imposing mansions along the river-front as they rose, one above another, against a glowing sky. The scene imprinted itself on his consciousness and ever since then he has been fascinated by conglomerations of buildings especially the juxtaposition of their shapes and sizes. Soon, propelled by an inner urge, he began his artistic journey without any formal training in art. In fact, his interest in painting came instinctively, as he has grown up in a region where women routinely adorned the walls of their homes with mythical themes. However, instead of traditional art, he chose to paint landscapes in a semi-realistic style which received appreciative comments. He was invited to participate in group exhibitions and encouraged by the response, he would occasionally hold solo shows. His latest oeuvre in this exhibition is characterized by aesthetic sensibilities that have been nuanced by transient and ephemeral memories from the past and vivified by an imagined present. In the process, buildings become the leitmotif of his works be it a cluster of village huts or a vast urban sprawl of an ever expanding town. Featured also, are Mumbai’s sterile concrete housing blocks, colourful slums perched on hillsides or soaring skyscrapers. In these paintings, the remembered merges seamlessly into the imagined. Each work portrays a complex composition with its repeated architectural motifs in variegated hues dramatized by shifts of light and shade to project a particular mood. Without doubt, his paintings are embodiments of a creative process that transform the echoes of kaliedoscopic impressions into a visual equilibrium of line, form and colour. They exemplify a creative process that is both evocative and expressive.