Bio

Amrita Singhal is based in Berkeley, California. She studied drawing and art history with the brilliant and reclusive painter Louise Smith who was a contemporary colleague of the Bay Area Abstract Expressionists (Diebenkorn, Park, Bischoff et al.) and a one time student of Hans Hoffman, Erle Loran and Margaret Peterson O’Hagan at UC Berkeley. Two of Amrita’s paintings are in the permanent collection of the UC Berkeley Art Museum (BAM). She has painted a Berkeley Public Works Art mural for Meyer Sound and regularly exhibits her work in solo and juried group shows. Amrita is also creating a series of immersive works, blending traditional painting techniques with cutting-edge technology. Her exploration into virtual reality and digital immersives as a medium will offer an exciting dimension to her artistic vision, inviting viewers to experience her work in new and dynamic ways.

Statement

My childhood and adolescence in India have played a decisive role in my life as a painter. I grew up in a beautiful city with architecture from earlier centuries and my daily life as a child was saturated with the natural world, Indian mythology and several different religions.  I emigrated to the US as a teenager and eventually became a lawyer. However, once I discovered oil painting and printmaking, there was no turning back.

My work explores the universal in being human within an ecosystem of many species. Color, texture and the neverending mysteries of paint allow me to inhabit this infinite ecology through themes of nature, beauty, alienation and spirituality.  Painting is the primary medium through which I communicate; however, my creative life is opportunistic and goes where it will. In addition to painting on different mediums and printmaking, I have painted a City of Berkeley mural and am currently creating a show in virtual reality with the final goal of producing it as an immersive for the wider public. All my work draws inspiration from music and art history; I am also drawn to ancient cultures (Vedic, Egyptian, Greek, Roman etc.) for an understanding of the contemporary experience. My goal as an artist is to experience and express the poetic, inchoate and eternal.