Paramjit Singh

Paramjit Singh Some contemporary Indian painters have found landscape painting as a genre suitable for expressing the esoteric and the outr6. For them the phenomenal world hides something more than what is immediately perceived. Paramjit Singh's hills and woodlands carry the luminous memory of a transcendental presence. Born in 1935 in Amritsar, Paramjit Singh had his art education in the School of Arts, Delhi Polytechnic (1953-58). He was the founder member of 'The Unknown', a group of young painters and sculptors based in Delhi. Paramjit landscapes, with their loaded silence evocative of the other worldly, became over the years, a distinct mystical utterance in pictorial terms. The esoteric in his landscapes was perhaps young Paramjit response to the mystery in tensions between the deep pictorial space and the sharp shadows of inanimate objects in the picture metafisica, a short-lived school in modem Italian art, and to the later Surrealist paintings. All these were transformed over about two decades into a personal statement in Paramjit's paintings. From around the late 80s, Paramjit's landscapes and his 1 techniques changed radically. The Italian picture metafisica with their sharp shadows and melting tones receded into oblivion, and there emerged lush Indian landscapes with a mystical vision of a transcendental presence. Paramjit Singh won the National Award in 1970. Between 1967 and 1994, he had 24 solo shows in India and in important galleries and art centres in Norway, Germany and Belgium. In 1973 he worked in the graphics studios of the Atelier Nord, Oslo. He was a faculty member of the Department of Fine Art, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, for 29 years, and retired as Professor in 1992. Between 1957 and 1994, Paramjit participated in 48 important exhibitions in India and abroad, which included the First Young Asian Artists Exhibition, Tokyo (1957), Art Expo '70, Indian Pavilion, Osaka, Exhibition of Prints, Atelier Nord and Gallery '71, Tromso, Norway (1 973), Indian Art Today, 1Yarmstadt, Germany (1982), the 15th International Biennale, Tokyo (1 984), Inaugural Exhibition, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal (1984), Art Biennale, Ankara, Turkey (1986), Festival of India, USSR (1987), International Festival of Art, Baghdad (1988), 'Indian Encounters', The Galleria, London (1 993), Art Biennale, Cairo (1994), Art Festival, Israel (1994). In twenty years, between the '70s and '90s, Paramjit Singh took part in eight artists' camps in India and one in Thailand. His paintings came under the hammer at seven important art auctions in India and at Christie's in London, and at the auction by Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi-London, in 1994.In 1988, Paramjit Singh was the Commissioner for the Indian participants in the Art Festival of Pakistan, Lahore. He painted 450 sq. ft. area for an environmental room in Bombay in 1990-93. Paramjit Singh lives and works in New Delhi.

Paramjit Singh The Boat Oil on Canvas 36" x 46" 1974 Paramjit Singh Moonlight Oil on Canvas 30" x 36" 1986 Paramjit Singh Purple Ridge Oil on Canvas 62" x 69" 1989