Kuldeep Singh: Neither Sun nor Moon
Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present Neither Sun nor Moon, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Kuldeep Singh, marking his debut with the gallery. Bringing together nine new works, the exhibition features portraits of male figures in quiet, contemplative moments, exploring intimacy, desire, and longing through a contemporary reimagining of South Asian visual and literary traditions.
Ranging from expansive domestic interiors to intimately scaled portraits, Singh’s paintings recast the figure of the longing heroine, a recurring presence in classical Indian poetry and painting, through portraits of contemporary men. Often depicted in states of repose or private reflection, the figures inhabit spaces that feel at once familiar and psychologically charged. Their gestures and expressions suggest an emotional world shaped by anticipation, tenderness, and desire. Though often semi-nude, the figures are not presented as objects of erotic display. Instead, Singh approaches the male body with sensitivity, allowing vulnerability and quiet forms of intimacy to come to the fore.
The exhibition’s title, Neither Sun nor Moon, evokes a longing that cannot be satisfied by the world at large, but only by the presence of the beloved. This yearning connects Singh’s contemporary subjects to the nayika, or heroine separated from her lover, in South Asian literary and pictorial traditions. His ongoing engagement with the raagmala, a historical Indian painting tradition linking musical modes with poetic and pictorial narratives, provides a foundation for these works. Drawing on Sanskrit and vernacular love poetry, Singh reimagines these inherited narratives through queer male protagonists. The concept of vipralabdha shringara, a state of love shaped by separation and longing, offers a framework for the paintings’ emotional tension. Here, desire extends beyond romantic fulfillment toward broader questions of solitude, spiritual seeking, and the possibility of connection.
Singh’s longstanding study of Odissi, a classical Indian dance form, informs the figures’ expressive poses and gestures, while Indian classical music shapes his approach to rhythm and time. Working with friends and lovers as sitters, he constructs scenes informed by personal relationships, lived interiors, and the suggestive language of poetry. Dance, music, painting, literature, and the rituals of everyday life are not separate influences in Singh’s practice, but interconnected experiences that shape how he moves through the world and approaches his work.
Singh’s painting process brings a comparable sensitivity to the surface. Working into dampened canvas, he builds up pigment through quick, layered applications, alternately dabbing, smearing, and adjusting the paint’s fluidity. Figures emerge from passages of color that shift between definition and abstraction, lending the paintings a depth that is both chromatic and emotional. Across the exhibition, small gestures and surrounding objects carry a weight that exceeds their immediate function. A figure adjusts a garment; another rests in thought. These ordinary moments become sites of emotional possibility, held in suspension rather than resolved into a fixed narrative. Through their balance of sensuality and restraint, the paintings offer a tender portrait of queer interior life, grounded in historical traditions yet attentive to the complexity of contemporary experience.
Kuldeep Singh lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA from the College of Art, University of Delhi, in 2007 and an MFA from the University of Iowa in 2015. His recent solo exhibitions include Victoria Miro, London (2026); Perrotin, New York (2024); and Chemould CoLab, Mumbai (2024). His work has been exhibited at the National Museum of Norway, Oslo; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; and Kistefos Museum, Norway, among others. His work is held in the collection of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, and private collections internationally.
Singh has participated in residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Yaddo, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, HH Art Spaces, Residency Unlimited, and the LES Studio Program. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2018, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Dance Grant in 2022, and the Kreielsheimer & Jones Grant in 2024. He has taught at the University of Delhi and the University of Iowa, served as a visiting critic at New York University and the Rhode Island School of Design, and was most recently invited as faculty in residence at the University of Washington, Seattle.
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