Meetali Singh is a painter and printmaker settled in Baroda. Though her paintings and prints have similarities, her more recent works- paintings begin where the prints end. Fundamentally Meetali is concerned with the treatment of space. What began as an exploration of the understanding of this element has led to a discovery of the artists thinking and creative process. With a formal background in painting, the wish to add finer technical skills to her creativity led this artist to pursue a post graduation course in graphics from The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. Her graduate years in painting in Varanasi saw her working in a more abstract and figurative format. Coming to Baroda, the artist became more aware of her self as well as her art. Architectural forms, figures and elements of landscape along with the quality of the mystery offered by the rendering of images and their reflections on glass led to the interest in the combination of visual reality and the conjured created reflections.

Elements of her printmaking techniques continue to crop up in her paintings. The major development and change that comes with the use of this medium is the way the artist is attempting to release herself from the bounds of linearity of her post grad days. Presently working in a different medium, painting, has given Meetali a new feeling of freedom, which is obvious in the treatment of her images and space. This medium allows her to achieve a certain amount of softness, which was not possible in the process of graphics. The emphasis on the conjuring of space is much less complex, maybe a reflex to the fact that the artist acknowledges painting as a more direct process than printmaking. Realistic figures in an unrealistic environment set the pace for the emergence of visuals neither totally fantastic nor real. Maintaining a fine balance between the both without emphasizing on either is what strikes one when looks at the narrative in Meetali’s work, which portrays a restless mind in search for answers of life. Rather than multiple images converging to create a singular visual, here, it is the other way around; where several images emerge from the main one to encompass the entire surface.

Painting her emotions in a dream like quality takes a more mystical feel in her paintings. This is also attributed to the fact that Meetali depicts her dreams and desires in a surrealistic manner enhanced by the lyrical quality of a medium which the artist feels accentuates the feminity of her being and works. Meetali’s works grow in an incessant manner, embracing the viewer and setting a curiosity amidst the narrative, which in itself is free from the enclosures of a beginning and an end.

Though the need to demark the space on the visual surfaces for the real and the fantastic is evident, the theme of the artists work is aimed purely to relate those very same elements of the conscious and the unconscious, creating a continuous homogenous harmony.