Statement
The investigation of my perception of space is central to my art practice. I use color and form to work out different ideas, and I often work in series. Each series is a means to further my understanding of a particular experience of space, and of the duality of presence and absence. This investigation can be traced though all of my work and has distinct visual manifestations.
The Fold series is an investigation of the intrinsic spatial complexity of folding which reveals itself in the everyday. These acrylic drawings on and with paper reflect changes in light that alter our perception of color and form. The process of cutting and folding transforms the flat surface of the paper into three dimensions, blurring distinctions between inside and outside, front and back.
Much of my current work is in ceramics, and my ceramic sculptures are a natural extension of these spatial ideas in three dimensions. The drawings on the flat ceramic pieces (i refer to them as “tiles”) contain the blueprints for the standing forms. The Folds series has also opened the door to a return to painting. The use of a spray gun, which I often use to glaze the ceramics, creates an image with a tonal smoothness and blurred edges like photography. This application of paint changes the way we perceive forms in relation to the plane of the canvas.
The process of working across disciplines, between ceramics, drawings and painting, deepens my experience of my relationship to space in this particular time.
Bio
Sonita Singwi is a first generation American whose German/Danish mother and Indian father immigrated from England. She lived most of her life in the Midwest, but also spent several years in India and Sweden as a child.
Singwi received an MA in Art History from New York University and an MFA from Hunter College.
Singwi currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has had solo shows with the Liebman Magnan Gallery in NYC, Hales Gallery in London, and the Shed in Brooklyn.
Museum shows include MULTILAYER-Vision 20/20 which was curated by Julianne Rogge and Ivo Ringe. This exhibition opened at the Raum Schroth /Museum Wilhelm Morgner in Soest, Germany. Other museum shows include Brooklyn! at the Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, and Sight Mapping, which began its tour at the Sala Rekalde in Bilbao, Spain.
Sonita Singwi has also participated in numerous group shows including Warm, Cool, Round, Square at the 20/20 Gallery in NY which was curated by Deven Golden. Other recent group shows include The Non-Objective Art Biennial 2019 in Pont de Claix, France, curated by Roland Orépuk.
Singwi's work has been reviewed by The New York Times, Art in America, and Contemporary, and Modern Painters.
She is a fellow of the Artist in the Marketplace (A.I.M.) Program of The Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Her studio is in the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn.