Mar­sha Pearce

Shali­ni Singh's so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion Cos­mos opened on Oc­to­ber 23 at the Gallery at Fine Art. Singh's new body of work takes us on a jour­ney that seeks to ex­pand our aware­ness of how in­ter­twined we are with each oth­er and of our re­la­tion­ship to the uni­verse.

It is a cre­ative jour­ney that moves from the di­men­sion of the mun­dane and the phys­i­cal to ce­les­tial planes and realms where peace and bliss can reign. Singh in­sists that it is a voy­age with a des­ti­na­tion that ex­ists with­in us.

Her piece Earth, Wind, Wa­ter, Fire and Ether: We are the Uni­verse and the Uni­verse Ex­ists in Us, fea­tures a large hand with each fin­ger rep­re­sent­ing one of the five cos­mic el­e­ments. The piece un­der­scores our ties to all ex­ist­ing mat­ter and space.

Singh ex­plains, "Every­thing that makes up this uni­verse is lo­cat­ed with­in our own bod­ies. The paint­ing de­picts our one­ness with the cos­mos. For ex­am­ple, the con­cept of earth ex­ists with­in us in the form of bones, or­gans, skin, teeth, nails. Wind or the air el­e­ment is found in our in­testi­nal sys­tem or our breath­ing. Our liq­uid el­e­ments are found in the form of sweat, mu­cus, fat, tears. Fire re­lates to the in­ter­nal mech­a­nisms that are nec­es­sary to pro­duce phys­i­cal warmth and di­ges­tion in the body. Ether or akasa refers to in­ter­nal space el­e­ments with open­ings or ori­fices, which are found in the forms of the ear, nos­tril or the mouth."

Singh's work is per­me­at­ed with Hin­du the­o­ries of life and pur­pose but she al­so draws in­spi­ra­tion from im­ages and ex­pe­ri­ences around her. Singh says that the mak­ing of Earth, Wind Wa­ter, Fire and Ether was in­flu­enced by Ital­ian Re­nais­sance artist Michelan­ge­lo's paint­ing The Cre­ation of Adam, in which God ex­tends his arm and trans­fers life to Adam.

Oth­er pieces in Cos­mos were trig­gered by a trip Singh made to In­dia in 2011, a trip that helped to crys­tallise the theme of cos­mos. "Mantras, flute mu­sic, the roar­ing Ganges at dusk, and re­li­gious pro­ces­sions along its banks were in­grained in my vi­su­al store­house. These ideas were sketched and pho­tographed. It is then I start­ed to find some di­rec­tion in this body of work.

"While I want­ed to de­pict the sa­cred places that I vis­it­ed, I want­ed to show their con­nec­tion or rel­e­vance on a broad­er scale with ques­tions of life and ex­is­tence. This is where the idea of cos­mos came in. I asked my­self what is the pur­pose of the dra­ma of the world? I be­gan to re­shape im­ages, ap­ply­ing them to a wider spec­trum of ex­is­tence that would ap­ply to any­one in any space."

This new ex­hi­bi­tion is the pro­gres­sion of a vi­su­al di­a­logue Singh has been hav­ing over the years. It ex­tends and deep­ens ideas about hu­man ex­is­tence, the mind, our emo­tions and bal­ance and har­mo­ny with the world around and with­in us, con­cepts ad­dressed in her 2010 so­lo show Ves­sels and her 2011 ex­hi­bi­tion Dream Space.

Along with be­ing a prac­tis­ing artist who has shown her work both in the Caribbean re­gion and abroad, Singh teach­es vi­su­al art at the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School and art his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Shali­ni Singh's Cos­mos runs un­til No­vem­ber 3 at the Gallery at Fine Art, cor­ner of War­ren and Ros­ali­no streets, Wood­brook.