Ebenezer Sunder Singh

Singh was born in the temple town of Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu in India.[1] His formative years were influenced by the twin heritages of his hometown, which houses both Christian cathedrals and the Hindu Nellaiappar Temple. Singh went on to graduate from Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai, where he had begun to show his work in state-level exhibitions.[3] He studied under 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 photography and video art under Julia Scher and Judith Barry.[3]

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 paintings and sculptures at a 1996 solo exhibition titled The Hollow Men, The Stuffed Men at Easel Art Gallery.[4] 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... His work saw him drawing on metaphysical themes of redemptive resurrection and transcendentalism.

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. 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 like Barcelona, Budapest, Munich, and Mumbai with self-portrait photography, canvases and sequined fiberglass sculptures.[4]

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."[5] Singh's video art pieces, such as Master of Arts and Narashimha Avatar, have been 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 were exhibited at Gallery 400 in the University of Illinois at Chicago and at the Windsor Art Center in Connecticut.[6] Singh's collaborations include a 2014 exhibition titled When Marco Polo Saw Elephants, a show reviewed by art critic Susan Dunne of the Hartford Courant. [7] Singh is currently represented by the R L Fine Arts Gallery in New York City.[8]

Singh's works are often described as metaphysical explications on memory, mythology and symbolic iconography. 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."[9]

Art critic and Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Roobina Karode says that he "consistently draws on themes such as redemption, betrayal, guilt, wanderlust and male valor," and that the artist "channels his spontaneity on canvas and sculpture... and exposes preconceived notions on the 'superhuman' ideal of male virility and societal masculinity."[4] 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... [and he] masters the controlled messiness of the medium for its raw appeal and expressivity."[4]

• 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