Ranakpur

Artist: Paramjit Singh
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 40 x 40 inches (101.6 × 101.6 cm)
Year: 2013

In this contemplative abstract painting, Paramjit Singh invites viewers into a space where form dissolves into feeling and color assumes the role of storyteller. Dominated by rich, immersive shades of deep green, the canvas unfolds like a quiet meditation on nature, neither a literal landscape nor a defined body of water, but a poetic evocation of both. Through his layered oil technique and delicate modulation of hues, Singh creates a visual field that is atmospheric, fluid, and emotionally resonant.

Hints of yellowish-green streak through the surface, their lighter tones creating gentle undulations that suggest light filtering through foliage or glinting off a forested pond. The addition of pale blue tones, especially a thin, slightly angled horizontal line, introduces movement and subtle directionality, hinting at a horizon, a reflection, or a fading stream. These strokes are neither assertive nor illustrative; instead, they gesture quietly toward possibilities within the abstraction.

The artist’s use of oil paint lends the work its distinctive depth and texture. The surface appears thickly worked, with areas of soft diffusion and heavier impasto layered to achieve a tactile complexity. This painterly richness draws the viewer into an experience of stillness and reverie, as though encountering a remembered place from within rather than without. A faint glow of golden hues at the bottom edge of the canvas subtly balances the composition, suggesting warmth or perhaps the trace of setting sunlight across water or land.

Singh’s work is its ability to invoke the natural world without direct reference. There are no clear forms, no trees, no water, no sky, yet the emotional vocabulary of landscape remains present. This abstraction serves as a bridge between the seen and the sensed, aligning with Paramjit Singh’s long-standing interest in reimagining the idea of terrain as a mental and emotional space, rather than one simply observed.

This painting is emblematic of Singh’s mature practice: meditative, immersive, and deeply grounded in the Indian landscape tradition while remaining universally resonant. The work resists immediate interpretation, instead inviting prolonged engagement and inner reflection. An elegant addition to any collection, this oil on canvas offers both visual richness and conceptual subtlety, an enduring testament to Paramjit Singh’s poetic abstraction.