Shambhavi Singh · b. 1967 Patna → New Delhi → World
Painter, printmaker & installation artist — non-figurative meditations on agriculture, rural labour, sustenance and migration, in earth pigment, handmade paper & forged iron.
Earth pigments · Hand-beaten pulp · Forged iron — a live 3D stage, tilt it
About · Practice
A reflection on labour, sustenance, and the fragile relationship between humans and the earth.
Shambhavi Singh (born 1967) is a painter, printmaker and installation artist based in New Delhi. Her practice spans diverse processes and media but stays predominantly non-figurative — focused on the relationship between humans and nature, and the social and metaphysical conditions of the agricultural worker.
Born in Patna, Bihar, visits to her grandparents in the countryside sparked her lifelong interest in nature. She studied at the College of Fine Arts and Crafts, Patna in the 1980s alongside Subodh Gupta, moved to Delhi in 1990 and earned an MFA from Delhi College of Art.
International travel sharpened — never diluted — her Bihar roots: a 1997 Tropenmuseum project in Amsterdam opened migration and migrant labour; Greatmore Studios, Cape Town (2000–01) deepened her engagement with Gandhi; STPI Singapore (2010) changed her palette and put her work in the MoMA permanent collection, New York.
Representation: Shambhavi Singh Studio · Talwar Gallery (New York & New Delhi) · info@shambhavisingh.com
Art practice · four threads
Hover a tile — it lifts, shines & opens the story.
Kochi Biennale · 2018
◍BIHAR · GANGACur. Anita Dube. Bihar heritage, the redemptive Ganga, Buddhist clarity — monochromatic depths cut by bursts of radiant colour, from hand-ground earth to light.
Reapers' Melody · Talwar 2014–15
◍IRON ROPE · MUD“Deploying basic earthy tones, here was the recreation of the rural Indian landscape…” (Monica Arora, 2015). Rehat — iron rope drawn by bullocks; mud-hut textures; the farmer's monsoon gaze.
Studio · within my haven
◍DELHI · BIHAR“I live in an apartment whose terrace I have filled with my favourite plants… Then I go to my studio, 5 minutes away… Then in the evening I come home like the farmer.” Being a farmer's daughter, earth is kin.
STPI Singapore · turning point
◍2010 · 2011At STPI her palette changed: finger and hand painting on pulp like mud-wall painting. Iconography shifted; the relationship with Earth acquired new vibration.
Selected work · drag / scroll
Every medium she commands — scroll and the wall moves in 3D. Tap a card to feel it lift.
01Oil · 2021
02Pigment · 2019
03Acrylic · 2022
04Gold leaf · 2018–20
05Charcoal · 202106Textile · 2024
07Pigment · 2023
08Iron · 2023
09Pulp · 2020
10Pulp · 2014← Scroll the page to drive the wall · swipe / drag it · hover a frame · click to enlarge →
Painting · darkness to light
Oil, earth pigment, gold leaf, watercolour — horizon lines that hold labour and prayer.
Oil on canvas · 2021River narratives / poetics of crossing. Diptych on Sone River town Koilwar — colonial bridge, boats as transit metaphor for migrants, brides, traders, ghosts. Umber, river-grey, sun-bleached white.
Pigment · 2019Triptych in hand-ground earth pigments from Ganga / Yamuna / Sarasvati riverbeds. Topsoil loss, fissures repaired with gold kintsugi, ash-white and new green.
Acrylic ink · 2022Fierce maternal — Kalighat patua meets German expressionism. Indigo, blood-red, bone-white in aggressive strokes. Violence, sexuality, liberation.
Oil + gold leaf · 2018–20Varanasi's sacred geography — ghats at dawn in gold leaf, ash, flowers and prayer glazes. Ochre, vermilion, ash-white, twilight blue.
Mixed media · 2021The well as architecture, metaphor, portal — after Bundelkhand's water-starved villages. Charcoal and ink scraped like parched earth and masonry.
Watercolour · 2014Bhojpuri longing between land and atmosphere. Indigo, sepia and pale ochre washes from a rural Bihar residency.
Mixed media · 2023Cloud / soil convergence with real soil embedded — storm-gray, loam, sky-blue, iron-red. Agrarian, climate and spiritual ecology.
2008–2024 · NY–NDA dialogue across two geographies and decades: Ghatak, Postal Address, Migrant Laborers, 2000 Echoes, Home. Cur. Deepak Talwar.
Installation · walk inside
Sound, textile, video, pigment dust — footprints become part of the work.
Mixed media · 2024Absence, memory, correspondence — found letters, discarded envelopes, hand-stitched paper. Visitors leave unsent letters behind.
Sound textile · 2024Immersive listening — lullabies across generations, suspended fabric with embedded speakers carrying mothers' and grandmothers' fragments. 4-channel, 22-min loop.
Video + objects · 2023Site-specific for Kiran Nadar Museum of Art — modernist abstraction against folk, 3-channel video plus hand-painted textiles negotiating the white cube. Six months in situ.
Pigment · clay · 2023Floor-to-ceiling pigment dust you walk through — a ritual of return where every footprint completes the work.
Video sculpture · 2022The river as uncontainable — fluid memory, borders, Northeast ecology. Single-channel 12-min loop with river sediment, found wood and metal.
Biennale · 2018Warehouse cartography of Bihar — “I could see that the farmer's being was essentially conjoined in sympathy of us all…” Cur. Anita Dube.
Iron works · working with iron
Forged iron that holds Braille poetry, palm shade and migrant winds.
Forged iron · 2023Poetry you touch — raised dots in Hindi, Bhojpuri and English on hand-hammered iron. Displacement, letters, lost languages. Also: Blindness Illuminated embossed-paper series.
Iron · shadow playDots cast long shadows; reading becomes walking. Light is the second material.
Iron + mixed media · 2024The migrant gaze eastward — railway ticket stubs, maps, rusted locks embedded in iron. Bhojpuri wind as memory and prophecy.
Forged iron · 2022Palm fronds translated to sheet iron — veins, rust, shadow. Harvest, shade and eastern India. Each leaf ~18×36".
Clay & pulp · drawing · video · on exposure
Hand-beaten fibre, mineral colour — plus drawing, film and photographic works.
Clay · pulp · 2020Earth-emerging work in clay, cotton pulp, husk and pigment — first dawn light on soil.
Cotton pulp · 2014Hand-formed cotton paper pulp, acrylic, watercolour. Hinterland frugality — silence, childhood farms, monsoon lightning, chulha flames. Made with master papermaker Richard Hungerford at STPI; Delhi cotton pulp like mud huts. 18×45"–27×35". Series: Ant-mein, Aadhia-puraa, Saaf-saada, Garam-chaar, Grishma-ritu, Paanch-devi, Window.
Process · 2023–ongoingAbaca from the Philippines, hand-hammering, ochre / indigo / organic colour. Sheets 12×18"–24×36". Studio dialogues in fibre and mineral.
Kuan — the well as portal. Blindness Illuminated — tactile Braille poetry on embossed paper. Boat Koilwar — river narratives.
Photographic works — I Travel Through Art (paper · iron filings · emulsion), Midnight Thousand Song (Gandhi · South Africa · me), Blindness Illuminated.
69-work living archive of practice — pulp, pigment, iron studies from the Delhi studio, 5 minutes from home.
Video · film
Biennale talks, process reels and river loops.
Meet Your Artist: Shambhavi Singh — Kochi-Muziris Biennale
Art Connect: Shambhavi Singh — Bodhgaya Biennale 2016
Studio reels: Reel 1 · Reel 2 · Reel 3 · Reel 4 — Midnight Thousand Song · Brahmaputra loop (12 min) · Reapers' Melody (22-min 4-channel)
Experience · residencies → awards
Amsterdam → Cape Town → Singapore → Delhi — migration as method.
Three months with master printers; hand-beaten pulp, mineral pigments, paper as terrain. Palette changed, iconography shifted. Works entered MoMA permanent collection.
Midnight Song — handmade paper, palm fans, 12 pages of independence. Gandhi, Mandela, rainbow nation; Cape Point oceans, migrants, slavery. William Fehr Collection.
Art between implosion and explosion.
Origin of the migration / migrant-labour inquiry. Association with Foundation of Indian Artists, Amsterdam.
Workshops & teaching — process as pedagogy.
Public lectures on sustenance, resilience and invisible labour.
Exhibited India, South Africa, Australia, New York, Netherlands. Prussian Blue, KNMA Noida 2023 (cur. Dr Arshiya Lokhandwala). Bhoomi solo, Gallery Espace 2020.
Work in the Museum of Modern Art, New York — following the STPI residency.
Publications · press
“Her work transforms labour into visual meditation.” — The Hindu, 2023
Collections
Museum walls, public archives and private homes.
MoMA, New York (permanent) · Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Noida (Prussian Blue 2023) · William Fehr Collection, Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town.
Talwar Gallery holdings, New York & New Delhi — spanning Ghatak, Postal Address, Migrant Laborers, 2000 Echoes, Home.
STPI Singapore (2010 residency works) · Foundation of Indian Artists, Amsterdam.
Bhoomi, Gallery Espace 2020 (tools of agriculture, countryside structures) · Reapers' Melody, Talwar 2014–15.
News & events
New earth-pigment works alongside the next generation of material artists.
Long-form feature on invisible labour and the ethics of material.
Themes behind recent works: wells, rivers, Braille, lullabies.
New essay and plates in a contemporary South Asian art catalogue.
Live on Instagram
New works, studio days & show glimpses — straight from the live feed.
Kashi — ghats at dawn, gold leaf
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗
Reapers' Melody — lullabies across generations
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗Braille — poetry you touch, forged iron
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗Earth series — hand-ground riverbed pigments
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗Ghar Dwaar — cotton pulp, about this home
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗Red Kali — fierce maternal in indigo & red
@shambhavi.studio84 · View on Instagram ↗Tap any card to open the live profile — reels, posts & stories update there in real time. Follow @shambhavi.studio84
Explore · all pages
Contact · studio visit
Acquisitions, commissions or studio visits — the studio replies by email, usually within a few days.
