About Durlabh
Durlabh Singh is an artist currently living in London, England. He was born In Nairobi, Kenya of Indian parentage. He has lived in London for over 40 years, though he serves as an international artistic ambassador to the world.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, as well as a Master of Arts in Visual Arts and PhD in English Literature.
He is an active member of the International Artists Association, Free Paints and Sculptors in association with the Menier Gallery of London, the British National Artists Association and the UK and European Union Migrant Artists Network.
His art has been exhibited and is housed in private and public collections all over the world including India, Kenya, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Paris, France and New York, New York.
Some of the public displays for his art are including, but not limited to the UK Ministry Of Defence in London; the World Trade Center Disaster Fund Office, New York City; the offices of Oxfam.UK; The Kinsey Institute for Research at Indiana University; the Wild Life Trust of India, Delhi; the Loggia Gallery in London; the corporate offices of British Petroleum, Britannic House in London, the Blackfriars Theatre and Arts Centre in Boston and the prestigious Horniman Museum, also in London, England.
He is also an accomplished poet having published in over 300 publications worldwide. He has written and illustrated several books including his critically acclaimed poetry collection, Chrome Red, the chapbook Invisible Lore and a fascinating collection of short stories, Kama Sutra of Love. His latest novel is In The Days of Love.
Durlabh’s Message
“Since R. Mutt's (Marcel Duchamp) ill-advised “urinal” creation in 1917, visual art in the western world has suffered a shock and a decline. It has become mere conceptual and has reverted to those former literary traditions of making statements, both social and political. Abstraction has become a puritan's attitude of non-depiction of human body in a dignified form. My art is a sort of revolt against this kind of pseudo-intellectualism.
My art takes account of both biological & metaphysical aspect of human body. It is a breakthrough to new levels of reality creating significant forms necessary for development of human spirit. My aim is to add new dimensions to contemporary art through language
of colour, innovated forms and expressions.
I welcome any suggestions or comments regarding my work. If anyone is interested in buying please contact me. My primary aim, artistically speaking, has never been financial gains.”
Claws of Moon.
Golden Temple
The Moon
The moon
Oh catch the moon
Put a noose in its nose
Bring it back to harness
The icy wilderness of the noon
Sprinkle it with flowered dew.
Catch it before it runs
To penumbra of sun hide itself
Oh run and run to recover
From suffocation of grief & bart
Stiffen its dust with tears
Or the ceremonial flood
Of the tidings of the present
The anti poetic
Peregrine of the sedged cart
The olibanum of crushed heart.
The moon
Oh catch the moon
Catch it till it runs
To the hilliard mansions
The septic pun
Where the master of hounds sleep
With his metallic face
Turned to the wall
Where under the greenish shadows
Shines the dool
The moon
Oh catch the moon
Catch it before it runs
To the penumbra of the sun.
CHIEF SEATTLE’S ADDRESS.
You asked me to
Sell my land
How could I sell my land
It would be like
Selling my soul
Selling the skies above
Presences in the airs
Sparkle of the waters
Memories in dark woods
Green meadows and
Sounds of humming bees.
Where sentry stand guarding the mists
Ghostly reflections among the sandy shores
The sap that runs through pine needles
The blood that courses through my veins
The heats generated by the shaggy pony
And my brother’s bear, deer and the eagle soar.
The rivers are my brothers
They quench my thirst, they feed me
Show me kindness, live my life
Feel me heal me bathe me knead me.
The earth is my mother
She nourishes me flourishes me
Perfumes me with flowers
Feeds me with corn
Sings me lullabies
Feels me in her pain
Renews me clues me with mystery.
Do not force me to sell the elements
My mother earth my brother river
My sister wind the sap in my brain
Gods of my visions heaven Striven
All my spirits among the forest frames.
The Bride
Tri-Murti
Woven By Sunsets
Woven by sunsets
She sharpens her claws
To take revenge on victims
To prove her ability to storm.
Broken charade of her life
Concealed under glance of beauty
A beauty that soon be fading
Turning skeletons of bare bones.
I wish she had fester feeling
To see high seas or starry nights
The lone pathways of her mind
Wish could whisper into her pains
Sorrel advent of some new dawn.
Her claws are sharp
Her teeth are blood soaked
She would never command
Some chilling call for intimacy.
Only the empty ego
Of her awakenings
Will rule over the stubbornness
And all her artless meanderings
May end in a wanton wilderness.
Veil
Poetry as a Way of Action
Our universe is an intensely vast entity and it may be hard to find anywhere else, our kind of life.
Durlabh Singh
We may be the carriers of a unique kind of consciousness but which we are reluctant to explore
fully. The field of our consciousness can be as vast as the universe.
Beside our personal & collective consciousness there may be other kinds of consciousnesses
and which we are reluctant to admit We always act from a very narrow egotistical point
of view. Poetry is a way of looking from a broader viewpoint thus gaining access to wider
realities of world and existence. It seems a sheer waste of life as to always live within narrow
confines of purely rational life.
A poet worth his salt should be able to break the barriers of programmed living and of trivial
indulgences of our daily lives.
Poetry is not a dead entity of rhymed lines or blank versifications, of an exhausted mind bleeding
under blows of cruel fate but is a defiant and energetic activity of human soul.
The greatness of human mind consist not simply in amassing wealth or fame but in discovering
new worlds, in keeping with artistic dignity of human spirit and this greatness is not of space and
time but of creative spirit and this vision gives significance to our fleeting mortal lives.
One category of metaphysics defines the absolute reality as ‘emptiness’ or ‘ nothingness’ but we
should not take it as being a vacuum for nihility but something beyond ‘thingness’. We put a
frame around everything and call it thingness. It just defines the boundaries of our understanding.
This ‘shunyata’ is like the virgin sands on a sea shore after the tide have washed away all the
scattered litter and sand castles. These sand castles may be defined as ‘Maya’
or illusion in popular sense but in deeper sense this very maya is the creative reality. The creation
of world around us, which is to a large extent, is our own creation, a collective consciousness.
It becomes an illusion only when we hold on to past forms, the traditions, the hero worship of our
idols or our efforts to keep the status quo, as inherited in our traditional attitudes. But
this individual creative aspect of our conscience can become a poetical anomaly resulting in new
awakening and liberation from mundane realities of our own making.
Sahib mera nit navan
Sada sada daata
My God is new everyday
He is the giver (of newness)
(Sikh Scriptures)
So God or reality is new everyday and we must keep pace with this newness. It is no use running away
from daily flux and seek refuge in old forms or past experiences. One should be a creative warrior
and fights the battles of life by producing works that resonate with our inner spirit. In our life there are
certain premises where neither contemplation nor physical action can give full satisfaction but our heart
cries for such creative vision.
With daggers drawn and swords clashed of steel
With dauntless courage and linked suffering for feel
The merciful warrior forwarded amid fight and pity
For both his friends and foes
Now drenched in bloods of futility.
Frets and fears of egoism now laid aside
His only concern now became
To fight for the liberty of his mind
Not for diversions or for abandoned castled dearth
Not for the prized glory in the eyes of the world.
Driven to edge for his hatred of tyranny
He showered his message of dignity for all sundry
His hand extended for support without caste or creeds
Amid sanctity of sufferings and all hallowed deeds.
Scribing Bachittar Natak his dramatic verse
Wondrous play of nature amid works of divine
Worlds of action or of contemplation
Beyond the little thine or mine
In jungles of Trai & Machiwara his tortures confined.
Here where men hate and taste blood in consummation
Indifference in ignorance of vultured eliminations
Great loss of innocents of his sons he endured
Among bitter smites but his poise he secured
The Sant Sipahi then reluctantly took to his sword
To defend dignity of Hind against marauding hordes.
Copyright © 2008 Durlabh Singh.
Durlabh Singh Websites
http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/d/durlabh/