Bio

Amrita Singhal is based in Berkeley, California. She studied drawing and art history in the atelier of painter and teacher Louise Smith who was herself a contemporary of the Bay Area Abstract Expressionists and a student of Hans Hoffman, Mark Rothko, Erle Loran and Margaret Perterson O’Hagan (to name a few). 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 currently producing one of her painting series in virtual reality and as an immersive exhibit.

Statement

My childhood and adolescence in India have played a decisive role in my life as a painter. I grew up in in a beautiful city with gardens and rivers and architecture from earlier centuries and my daily life as a child was saturated with vast doses of the natural world, extended family and Indian mythology. 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.

Painting allows me to explore the mysteries of Nature. It allows me to explore colors and texture. It allows me to explore what it means to exist, love and suffer in our world. To experiment on linen and wood and textile-like papers with hand-made oil paints, charcoal from forests, and pigments from around the world is all part of my daily work! Climate issues, human identity, spirituality, beauty and religion are some of the topics explored in my paintings. I find the resilience, courage and creativity of the human spirit incredibly inspiring and remain infinitely spellbound by the experience of existing, within nature, on this planet.