Ebenezer Sunder Singh

Ebenezer Sunder Singh
File:"Ebenezer Sunder Singh, with YOU - acrylic on canvas, May 2006.jpg".jpg Ebenezer Sunder Singh, at the opening of White Nights at Palette Art Gallery in New Delhi
Born	(1967-04-16) April 16, 1967 Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation	Artist

Ebenezer Sunder Singh (born 16 April 1967) is an Indian-born visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Singh works primarily as a neo-expressionist painter, sculptor, photographer and filmmaker. He has been credited as one of the best contemporary figurative artists to emerge from India in recent years.

Early life and education

Singh was born in the temple town of Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu in India. His formative years were deeply influenced by the twin heritages of his hometown, which houses both Christian cathedrals and the famous Hindu Nellaiappar Temple. Singh went on to graduate from Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai, where he had already begun to show his work in state-level exhibitions. He studied under pioneers in the field of South Indian figurative art, such as A. P. Santhanaraj and L. Mumusamy. Following his move to the United States, Singh received his MFA in Visual Art from the Lesley University College of Art and Design, where he studied the visual modes of photography and video art under Judith Barry.

Career

Singh's early career began at Cholamandal Artists' Village, Chennai, the largest artists' commune in India. His primary visual influences were initially based on Dravidian temple art and its mythological capacity for figuration, but he soon imbued this with elements of the Italian Transavantgarde movement following his exposure to the works of Naples-born painter Francesco Clemente. Singh debuted his neo-expressionistic pieces at a 1996 solo exhibition titled The Hollow Men, The Stuffed Men at Easel Art Gallery. Singh was then chosen to represent India in 1998 at the International Artists Camp held in Sri Lanka, where he worked and exhibited his works alongside German painter Thomas Scheibitz. The following year, Singh received the Charles Wallace Grant and traveled to England, where his illustration and printmaking works were exhibited at Kingston University in a show titled Neti...Neti... Drawing on metaphysical themes of redemptive resurrection and transcendentalism, Singh continued to build an individualistic oeuvre.

Avatar, fiberglass sculpture. Currently in the permanent collection of Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, Germany.

In the Indian art sphere, Pundole Art Gallery in Mumbai showcased Singh's figurative works, as did Anant Art Gallery, Threshold Art Gallery and New Delhi's contemporary art hub Palette Art Gallery. On the international stage, Singh had become a noted proponent of neo-expressionism in South Asian visual art. In 2001, he exhibited his paintings and sculptures at the Museum of Asian Art (Museum für Asiatische Kunst) in Berlin, Germany in a series titled Inspirationen. The Museum of Asian Art later acquired twelve of Singh's paintings and sculptures for its permanent collection, as did the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, India, which collected three of his paintings. Singh was awarded the Artist's Fulbright Fellowship as part of the Fulbright Program and researched on the cathartic symbolism of religious iconography in the context of the east-west subaltern dialogue. For the next decade, Singh continued to exhibit his contemporary figurative works in venues as varied as Barcelona, Budapest, Munich, and Mumbai with pieces as multifaceted as self-portrait photography works, canvases and sequined fiberglass sculptures.

Singh's photographic self-portraits were chosen to be a part of a traveling exhibition titled Self and the Other - Portraiture in Contemporary Indian Photography that toured through Barcelona and Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain in 2010. Art historian Deepak Ananth described Singh's series Wake Me Up When I Am Dead as being "radical and subversive... Ebenezer's self-portraits reveal a complex iconography, unafraid of their political undertones and repercussions." Singh's video art has also received considerable recognition, with pieces such as Master of Arts and Narashimha Avatar being included in short film festivals and exhibitions. Austin Peay State University in Tennessee showcased Singh's videos in its annual Terminal Short Video Festival in 2011.

In an exhibition titled Radiate: Art of the South Asian Diaspora, Singh's sculptures and visual works received an academic exposure at Gallery 400 in the University of Illinois at Chicago and at the Windsor Art Center in Connecticut. Singh's most recent collaborations with his figurative contemporaries manifested in a 2014 exhibition titled When Marco Polo Saw Elephants, a show reviewed by art critic Susan Dunne of the Hartford Courant. Singh is currently represented by the R L Fine Arts Gallery in New York.

Work

Singh's works are often described as metaphysical, bold explications on memory, mythology and symbolic iconography. His discrete and fluid connotations of color on multiple media show figures that "oscillate between feelings of fear and hope" Indian art critic Nancy Adajania describes Singh's work, saying, "Ebenezer uses his own body as a measure of his expression, allowing it to soar only to be grounded by its reflection: embracing a cosmic totality only to be cut by the swirling swathe of death...it liberates him from the distractions of excessive visual stimuli, to concentrate on the live material of the body that burns a thirsty flaming yellow, turns green with lust and envy and blue with spiritual awaking."

Consistently drawing on themes such as redemption, betrayal, guilt, wanderlust and male valor, Singh channels his spontaneity on canvas and sculpture." He exposes preconceived notions on the seemingly 'superhuman' ideal of male virility and societal masculinity. Moved by Nietzschean impulses and Jungian musings on the human psyche, his stylistic intents on canvas, paper and sculpture are deeply expressive and charged, as noted by art critic and Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Roobina Karode. Writing about Singh's charcoal drawings and fiberglass sculptures in a solo exhibition titled Thus Spake Zarathustra she said, "Ebenezer’s drawings are intensely evocative with their charged malleability... Ebenezer masters the controlled messiness of the medium for its raw appeal and expressivity."

Selected solo exhibitions

• Eloi...Eloi..., Ashok Jain Gallery, New York, USA - 2012
• Holy Smoke and Other Works, R L Fine Arts, New York, USA - 2010
• Thus Spake Zarathustra, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, India - 2008
• Ebenezer-A Decade-Works 1997 – 2007, Galerie Muller & Plate, Munich, Germany - 2007
• Sharing the Planet, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, India - 2007
• White Nights, Palette Art Gallery, New Delhi, India – 2006
• Ebenezer - Recent Works, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, India - 2005
• Blind Man’s Profession, Anant art gallery, New Delhi, India - 2005
• Neti...Neti, Kingston University, Surrey, UK - 1999

Selected group exhibitions

Museum exhibitions

• Self and the Other – Portraiture in Contemporary Indian Photography – Curators Devika Daulet-Singh & Luisa Ortinez - La Virreina Centre De la Imatge Palau de la Virreina, Barcelona, Spain. ARTIUM –Centro-Museo Vascode Arte Contemporanea, Vitoria, Gasteiz, Spain - 2009 (July) to 2010 (February)
• Hybrid Trend - Contemporary Art, India & Korea, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, Korea – 2006
• Recent Museum Acquisitions, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India – 2006
• Inspirationen – Museum fur Asiatic Kunst, Berlin, Germany - 2001(Sep) to 2002(Feb)

Group exhibitions

• When Marco Polo Saw Elephants, Art and Aesthetic Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2015. Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT, USA - 2014
• The Myth of the Given, Ashok Jain Gallery, NY, USA - 2013
• Radiate, Windsor Art Center, CT. Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA - 2012
• Video Wednesday – II, Curator Gayatri Sinha & Critical Collective, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India - 2012
• Terminal Short Video Festival, Austin Peay State University, Tennessee, USA - 2011
• End to End, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Centre, New York, USA - 2011
• The Intuitive-Logic Revisited, Osian’s & World Economic Forum, Davos-Klosters, Switzerland - 2011
• Myself – A Survey of Contemporary Self-Portraiture, Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, Reno, Nevada, USA - 2011
• Video India, Videospace, Budapest, Hungary - 2010
• Marvelous Reality, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India - 2009
• The Art of India – 20 years of Contemporary Indian Art, Indien-Institut, Galerie Muller & Plate, Munich, Germany - 2009
• Human Figure, Curator Marta Jakimowicz Karle, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi, India - 2006
• Are we like this only, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, India - 2005