Shambhavi Singh

Shambhavi Singh (born 1966) is a painter, printmaker, and installation artist currently based in New Delhi, India. Her artistic practice includes a wide variety of processes and media, but her work is largely non-figurative and focuses on the relationship between man and nature, as well as the social and metaphysical condition of the agricultural worker.

Born in Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar, Singh grew up visiting her grandparents in the countryside – visits that she cites as the origin of her fascination with nature and the inspiration for much of her work. Singh attended the College of Fine Arts and Crafts, Patna in the 1980s, alongside her contemporary, Subodh Gupta. She moved to New Delhi in 1990, earning a Masters in Fine Arts from Delhi College of Art, and she has continued to live and work in the capital for the majority of her two-decade career, despite frequent travel. In 1997, Singh traveled to the Netherlands to participate in a project at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, where she began to take interest in issues of migration and migrant labor. In 2000-2001, she was an artist-in-residence at Greatmore Studios, in Cape Town, South Africa, which led not only to a deepened engagement with the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, but also to an invitation to participate in Holland South Africa Line (HSAL), an international exchange project with Dutch artists held in the William Fehr Collection, in the Castle of Good Hope. In 2010, Singh was invited to be an artist-in-residence at the Tyler Print Institute (STPI), in Singapore.

Despite her extensive international travel, Singh continues to ground her work in her upbringing in Bihar, which she said “nurtured and evolved [her] creative language.” Her experiences abroad, in fact, helped to clarify her existing interest in the relationship between nature and man – it was while traveling, for example, that she began to become aware of the history of migration, as well as the plight of migrant laborers. Although Singh, who has worked in paint, printmaking, sculpture, video installation, and other new media, uses largely non-figurative and non-narrative modes of expression, her work remains closely engaged with the life and struggles of the agricultural worker. Singh’s work has been exhibited in India, South Africa, Australia, New York, and The Netherlands, where she was associated with the Foundation of Indian Artists, Amsterdam. She is represented by Talwar Gallery, which has exhibited her work in New York and New Delhi. Recently, Singh’s work was added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York.

Solo exhibitions

• 2014: Talwar Gallery, Reaper's Melody, New Delhi, India
• 2011: Talwar Gallery, Lonely Furrow, New York, NY, US

• 2008: Talwar Gallery, Lullaby, New Delhi, India
• 2007: Talwar Gallery, A Bird and 2000 echoes: paintings 2001-2006
• 2002: Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India
• 1998: Association for Visual Arts (AVA), Passage from India, Cape Town, South Africa

• 1997: Foundation for Indian Artists (FIA), Earth and Sky, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 1995: Foundation for Indian Artists (FIA), Birds eyes, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 1994: Gallery Chemould, Vigourous, Mumbai, India
• 1992-93: Foundation for Indian Artists (FIA), Passion for Home, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• 1990: Shridharapi Gallery, Dawn, New Delhi, India
• 1989: Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, India

• 2005: Vadehra Art Gallery, We are like this only, New Delhi, India
• 2004: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Amrita Shergil Revisited, New Delhi, India
• 2003: Lalit Kala Academy, Unshackled Spirit, New Delhi, India

• 2010: Singapore Tyler Print Institute
• 2001-2004: Greatmore Studios, Cape Town, South Africa, with participation in Holland South Africa Line (HSAL), at The Castle of Good Hope, William Fehr Collection
• 2002: KHOJ International Workshop, Mysore and Banglore, India
• 1998-99: The search within, Art between Implosion and Explosion, Pernegg Monastery, Vienna
• 1997: Project on “Kali,” Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands