There is a haunting quality in Paramjit Singh’s paintings, an intangible sense of the unknown that is so persuasive, it allows the artist to take the viewer on a journey of discovery amidst strange terrains or neighbourhoods, guided by a mysterious light that cuts through the countryside. This, the path untrodden, is saturated by a frisson of discovery. What lies ahead? Where will it lead? Does it have a destination? Or is it the infinite path of a seeker’s endless quest? In inviting the viewer into the painting’s innermost realms, Paramjit Singh conjures up landscapes that inhabit the fringes of our subconscious. With him, we are content to test its limits – and be tested by it, in turn.
The liminal mind is rife with the possibilities of unseen sightings. But Paramjit Singh’s landscapes belong to the seen, rendered unfamiliar by his imagination in which he, as companion and co-traveller, coaxes you to take the path less trodden, that which lay neglected but always awaited detection. For, as French novelist and literary critic Marcel Proust said, ‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.’
- Kishore Singh
