New West Berkeley mural is a repeated Hindi prayer, by Emily Mendel, Berkeleyside, August 21, 2023.  Singhal has covered the building’s entire Heinz Avenue side with an imaginative, repeated Hindi Rama prayer in blues and yellows. They’re transcribed in different sizes and planes that contour to the shape of the all-white background. The structure’s small size was perfect for the artist since she could paint all the surfaces — door, windows, awning, and even the two ashtrays at the door. The design is based on a painting by Singhal in the Berkeley Art Museum’s collection, which follows the historical meditative Indian tradition of painting the words “Rama Rama” (the Hindu deity who embodies spiritualities and morality) in an exercise to strengthen the mind. 

Berkeley tax lawyer started painting and ‘a lightbulb went off, by Emily S. Mendel, Berkeleyside, October 13, 2021. “Singhal’s current gallery show, Seek, Memory, combines memories of India with modern colorful imagery. For example, the affecting Funeral Pyres, a color-filled oil on wood, conceived in response to the pandemic, shows a cremator standing like a medieval knight amid the dead.”

‘An endless source of magic’: Amrita Singhal paints Berkeley mural, by Lia Klebanov, The Daily Californian, August 30, 2023. “My Berkeley mural at Meyer Sound is about goodness and courage,” Singhal said. “It is an attempt to get  the viewer to feel immersed and at peace so they can become aware of their being within nature and the universe, if only for a moment.”

And last, but not least, this in The Daily Cal!