Prem Singh

Born in 1943 in Punjab, before the Partition and India’s Independence, the artist’s worldview was shaped by a region and era marked by profound change, memory, and continuity. This early context continues to inform a practice deeply attentive to time, rootedness, and the quiet persistence of life beyond political and geographic boundaries.

Occupying a significant place in Indian contemporary art, the work reflects sustained contemplation of nature as an inexhaustible and regenerative force. Nature is treated not as mere scenery but as a living presence manifest and unmanifest whose rhythms, silences, and fleeting moments offer a poetic and meditative visual language. Painting becomes a space of inward listening, where gesture, line, and colour convey what the eye may not immediately perceive.

The visual vocabulary unfolds subtly, evoking what the artist describes as a “silent activity.” Energy is present but understated, revealed through stillness, attentiveness, and prolonged viewing. Many works evoke the soft light of dawn or dusk, moments when the world pauses and ordinary forms take on meditative resonance.

Early works reveal a psychological and historical engagement with Vincent van Gogh, not as imitation but as kinship. Van Gogh appears as a spectral presence within landscapes and interiors, conveying states of expectancy, introspection, and suspended emotion. These concerns continue in later abstractions, where recurring motifs gateways, sunflowers, window bars, cowled or squatting figures draw from local visual culture and everyday life. Rendered with restraint and directness, these elements hover between familiarity and mystery, balancing accessibility with meditative depth.

Alongside studio practice, a longstanding commitment to pedagogy and institutional engagement has shaped the artistic trajectory. Roles such as Principal of the Government College of Art, Chandigarh, and membership on the Advisory Committee of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, reflect a belief in art as both personal inquiry and public responsibility.

Works are represented in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Modern Art, Rashtrapati Bhavan, Lalit Kala Akademi, and other national and international museums. Recognized through numerous awards and honours, the practice remains a meditation on rootedness, transformation, and the quiet joy of existence, capturing the rhythms of life as they pass subtly through time and space.