Arpita Singh’s paintings and drawings pay tribute to the joys and sorrows of family life, where tensions and ties are often indicative of larger social and political formations. She is probably the only painter depicting the experiences of the older Indian woman today. Female figures floating against a colored background appear in The Ritual and The Eternal Repose. In these works, the female body is nude and exposed, the rolls and wrinkles of the flesh softening into a lumbering mass. In The Eternal Repose, the multi-armed woman reaches out, as if juggling the multiple relationships with families and friends that the modern Indian woman has to maintain. The reclining pose recalls that of the god Vishnu, the protector, just like the modern mother figure has to protect and nurture her family and the domestic realm.

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