Meet Darshika Singh

Darshika, a young artist is showcasing her work through her paintings at Method, Kala Ghoda. With a background in art, fashion design and philosophy, her current focus is on the rhyme, rhythm and repetition; the absurd and the ambient seen in her work which is on display upto February 9. She employs the use of repition in her geometric patterns and personal lexicon symbols, believeing that since no singular gesture remains forever correct, her paintings too bend to whim, memory, and fantasy, embracing the unassumed and the intuitive. She, like her art is ever-evolving. Over to her. 

ELLE: How would you define your identity as an artist?

Darshika Singh (DS): I would rather not define. 

ELLE: What is the overall message of your collection?

(DS): In my work, I often end up trying to understand the state of an ‘ideal’. However that ideal, by the very nature of its being, is almost impossible to reach, thus rendering all attempts merely a lip service to it. Hence, any message, if there has to be, is that the attempt to reach it or to understand it through this wordless communication in itself is worth being documented and shared. 

ELLE: How did you decide to use rhythm as your primary focus?

(DS): My fixation on rhythm is anchored in music. I believe I am a very boring person, and most of life, for most people, ends up being this state of mundanity that they are living through day in and out. All daily gestures are seated in repetition, which I wanted to tune into. It is often in repetition of a thing that a rhythm appears. I want to acknowledge the little changes that happen in an otherwise predictable routine that shape the overall narrative or have a compounding effect to the whole. Everything has a subtle musicality and flow to it. When I am listening to music, I feel more tuned into my surroundings and most of my inspiration comes from it. 

ELLE: Would you say that your paintings are ever-evolving? 

(DS): Yes, like most of art and life. And as it should be. 

ELLE: What would you define as the moment of truth for your art work?

(DS): The moment of truth is a kind of an ephemeral objectivity in the subjective experience of the work. There are fleeting instances when every mark in unison transgresses into the transcendental. The ‘true’ is not something that is encrusted inside the work but in the holistic experience of it. It is very touch and go. The feeling lies in the solitary experience of it, the work is barely a trigger for it (sometimes).  

ELLE: Given that art is often personal, do you feel as though you are baring parts of yourself to your viewers?

(DS): Yes, of course. The work is often sprinkled with deep set memories of things. However, I often find the obscurity of it very fun. 

ELLE: Rhythm and absurdity are considered opposites, how did you think to showcase their synergy in your art?

(DS): Firstly, I do not believe that rhythm and absurdity are inherently opposites. In general, I believe things exist on a spectrum rather than in two separate states of being where one is necessarily the negation of the other. There can always be a rhythm/pattern that is absurd and rule defying or one that is a replica of the proffered definition of it. All that happens is, its potency shifts. Thus, the synergy has never been a challenge, but rather the aim of the work. Also, the rhythm is concerned with my methodology and the absurd is something that keeps me amused.

ELLE: Since your art is ever mutating, does your process also change with each piece?

(DS): Yes, I might have a certain way of working at the moment but I have never found it restrictive in terms of creating something new. I think my preferred way to work is to let it be free but also not let the economics of making art be burdensome for me. The goal is to discover things that make me twitch, and to open and expand them, so there’s this specific universe where they can rest in where possibly another encounter can be made to explore further and look into.

ELLE: What journey would you want your viewers to go on, through this collection? 

(DS): I do not think there is a prescriptive journey that I have for the viewer. I want them to feel as free as I do in my process of creation.