For nearly three decades, Pune-based artist Neena Singh lived parallel lives. One followed the structure and discipline of the civil servant, while the other emerged through color and texture. It was only in his late 30s that he began painting seriously and taught himself to express his emotions. What began as a personal retreat has since evolved into a deeply intuitive artistic practice, balancing reflection with expression.
This personal journey now finds expression in his latest exhibition, Echoes of Becoming, at Bikaner House in Delhi – his first solo exhibition in the capital. The show brings together 50 works on canvas and paper, all executed in acrylic, created over the past five years and paving the way for their renewal. Curated by artists Aditya Shirke and Rahul Kumar, this exhibition unfolds like an intimate diary of transformation. Each canvas captures moments of emergence and dissolution, as if the artist himself were caught mid-thought, mid-breath, and mid-making.
“I got into art because I was tired of my own thoughts,” Nina explains. “Words were inadequate, which is why painting became a medium.” His abstractions come from nature, not as literal landscapes but as emotional states: the flow of water, the restlessness of wind, or the warmth of light. “Anything related to nature or landscape serves as a point of departure,” she says. “It’s not about illustration, it’s about expanding that idea.”
The language of nature, intuition and color
Neena’s journey as a professional artist began in 2006 with a solo exhibition Serendipity at the prestigious Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. Although self-taught, her intellectual curiosity has always shaped her practice. He holds Master’s and MPhil degrees in Sociology and a Doctor of Philosophy from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where his research focused on linguistic identity and Indian nationalism.
This engagement with ideas of belonging and expression continues to inform his art, giving him a sense of abstraction that feels both intimate and universal. For Nina, nature is never just a sight; It is a state of existence. The canvases in Echoes of Becoming reflect this sensibility: soft gradations of blue, light gold, and earthy ochre evoke mood more than objects.
While many of the works shimmer in these bright, expansive tones, some of the 2023-2024 pieces are in shades of gray and black, revealing inner turmoil and introspection. Some of the 2020 paintings also have a photographic quality, capturing fleeting visual impressions with an immediacy that contrasts with their more lyrical abstraction. Yet all his paintings share emotional transparency.
“There is a sense of clarity in his work,” says Aditya. “The best kind of art is open to interpretation, where the viewer brings his own meaning.”
Its process follows a rhythm of emergence and extinction. She rarely starts with sketches or plans; Instead, she instinctively approaches an empty surface, marks, splashes, and kicks until the thing begins to breathe. “It is a process of creation and destruction,” she explains. “Each layer carries both creation and destruction.”
Nina’s abstractions, in spirit, recall the atmospheric canvases of Turner and the contemplative silence of Gaitonde. The influence of SH Raza’s vibrant geometry and Gaitonde’s meditative restraint is also evident, not as imitation but as inheritance. “I owe a lot to these gurus,” Nina thinks. “Their spirit depends on how I see color and peace.”
freedom through becoming
His creative voice is deeply connected to his life story. Growing up in small towns in North India, in a time and family where a woman’s choices were often limited, Neena discovered freedom first in the pages of books and, later, in the act of painting. “Through painting I broke out of boundaries that seemed inappropriate,” she thinks. “It gave me breathing room.”
Echoes of Becoming is a meditation on what it means to exist in moments that are never fixed but always in flux. Nina’s paintings inhabit the spaces between thought and emotion, capturing the quiet tension of moving moments. In them, freedom is not an abstract idea but a living experience – delicate, luminous and always renewed.
The exhibition will run till November 17 from 11 am to 7 pm at Main Art Gallery, Bikaner House, New Delhi
published – November 14, 2025 11:02 am IST