Description

This thought-provoking painting by Umendra Pratap Singh juxtaposes decay and memory through a minimalist yet symbolically dense composition. Against a stark white background, a fragmented vessel floats above a silhouetted human head rendered in dark tones, its interior populated with architectural remnants—ruins, buildings, and urban textures. The upper form, resembling a broken bowl, evokes erosion and loss, while the head below becomes a repository of lived spaces and historical consciousness. Singh’s use of negative space as metaphor, a hallmark of his practice 1, heightens the psychological tension between emptiness and embedded memory. The work resonates with themes of archaeological introspection, suggesting that identity itself is layered with the sediment of civilization, myth, and time.