About Tarah Singh
My paintings begin with a refusal. I will not accept the premise that some people are less worthy of being seen as fully human. Every portrait I make is an argument against that premise, painted large enough that the argument is hard to ignore.
I am Indo-Guyanese, shaped by the layered inheritances of the Caribbean diaspora: South Asian, African, Indigenous, colonial, all of it braided together in ways that do not resolve neatly and were never meant to. That complexity is not a problem I am trying to solve in my work. It is the material I work with. My canvases hold multiple truths at once, the formal and the raw, the symbolic and the immediate, what was inherited and what is fiercely present.
The work is large-scale mixed media figuration. I build surfaces through layering, adding paint, texture, embedded symbol, and hidden text until the image rewards slow looking. There is always something beneath the visible face. I am interested in the person the world overlooks, the body the culture pathologizes, the identity the system would prefer to make invisible. My teacher Vadim Bora showed me that a painting could hold an entire worldview. I try to honor that every time I pick up a brush.
Her fine art grew from years of asking one question in different forms: who gets to be considered human without having to earn it first? The portraits in this series do not perform palatability. They do not ask permission. Figuration demands encounter in a way that abstraction does not, and I chose figuration because I want the viewer to have to meet someone, not just look at something.
I also carry the Caribbean tradition of visual resistance, of making beauty that does not flinch, of finding and insisting on dignity in exactly the place it has been denied. My work is political because the subject is political. It is also personal, deeply personal, because that is the only kind of work I know how to make.
The exhibition currently on view at YMI Cultural Center in Asheville, REFRAME: The Deconstruction of Constructs, is the fullest statement of this practice so far. It is an invitation to look again at what we have been taught to see, and at what we have been taught not to.
PRACTICE
Figurative painter working in mixed media. Her fine art explores identity, dignity, and belonging through a Caribbean and South Asian diaspora lens. Large-scale portraiture that insists on the full humanity of those made invisible by systems of dehumanization.
RESIDENCIES & SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026 Kuumba Artist in Residence, YMI Cultural Center Asheville, NC
2026 REFRAME: The Deconstruction of Constructs (solo), YMI Cultural Center Asheville, NC
2026 For the Record- Kefir Karnna Hendersonville, NC
2025 Flow State Art Residency, East Asheville Library Asheville NC
2025 RI – Real Intelligence, OG Synergy Asheville, NC
2025 Masquerade, Ginger’s Revenge Asheville, NC
2021 Insights, Pink Dog Creative Asheville, NC
2021 Duality, Here and Far Gallery Asheville NC
2018 In Bloom Mercato Sarasota Florida
2017 Tarah Singh at Pepe’s Abasola, Italy
2015 Unmasked Gallery Internationale Flat Rock
2009 Cameron Village Library Raleigh, NC
2006 Inward Eyes, North End Gallery Asheville, NC
2005 Human Reflections (solo), Private Residence Hendersonville, NC
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 With Pleasure, Bottle Riot Asheville, NC
2024 Noir Collective Asheville, NC
2022 Phased, Origins Makerspace Asheville, NC
2020 Pura Vida Gallery Asheville, NC
2019 Flora Cult Rome, Italy
2018 Harlem Fine Arts (HFAS) Manhattan NY
2018 Pura Vida Gallery Asheville, NC
2018 “In Bloom” Group show at the Block off biltmore Asheville, NC
2018 Adlier Gallery (Asheville, NC)
2017 “Pause” Group show at the Block off biltmore Ashville, NC
2017 Brevard Arts Council show (Brevard, NC
2017 Flora Cult Rome, Italy
2017 Spring Fling ( Fort Lauderdale, Fl)
2009 Loco Lu’s Raleigh, NC
2009 Edwin McKay’s Raleigh, NC
2009 Cup of Joe Raleigh, NC
2008 Barnes and Noble Durham, NC
2008 Off the Beaten Path Gallery Floral City, FL
2007 The Garage Asheville, NC
2007 Flat Rock Art and Wine Festival Flat Rock, NC
2007 Black Bear Coffee Shop Hendersonville, NC
2007 Apple FestivalH Hendersonville, NC
2006 Underground Studios Hendersonville, NC
2006 Wickwire “Seasons Juried Show” Hendersonville, NC
2006 Somewhere Else Hendersonville, NC
2006 YMI Cultural Center Asheville, NC
2006 Kinetic Impressionism @ the Discovery Center presented by the Battery Park Art Gallery Asheville, NC
2006 City Hall Asheville, NC
2006 Gypsy Show Hendersonville, NC
2006 Inward Eyes at the North End Gallery Asheville, NC
PUBLIC ART & COMMUNITY PROJECTS
2024 Penny Cup Mural, YMI Cultural Center Asheville, NC
2024 MLK Juneteenth Fashion Show Asheville, NC
2024 Southern Appalachian Brewery Hendersonville, NC
2018 Uptown DNA Mural, Just Folks Nonprofit Asheville, NC
2006 Mission Hospital Children’s Park Sculpture (apprentice, Vadim Bora) Asheville, NC
TEACHING & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Ongoing Youth Artists Empowered – teaching artist Asheville, NC
Ongoing Word on the Street – teaching artist Asheville, NC
Ongoing LEAF Global Arts – teaching artist Asheville, NC
Ongoing Imprint Artists (nonprofit founder) Asheville, NC
2022 Climate Justice Project with Tepeyac and Youth Artist Empowered Asheville, NC
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
2024 Tzedek Community Award Asheville, NC
2024 Cover, Pathways Magazine Washington, DC
2024 “The Threads and Shreds of Equity,” Pathways Magazine Washington, DC
2023 Dreamers and Doers Asheville, NC
2023 Empowerment Collective Asheville, NC
2025 Dreamers and Doers Asheville, NC
PRESS
2024 “The Threads and Shreds of Equity” Pathways Magazine Washington, DC
2024 Arts District, Decades in the Making, in Ruins After Helene – NY Times
2024 Head to the NC mountains for craft brewing showcase -The Charlotte Post
2023 “36 Hours in Asheville for Lovers of Art & Music” – Edible Asheville
2023 Empowerment Collective Asheville, NC
2022 Asheville’s newest exhibit spaces provide fresh opportunities-Origins Makerspace
2021 “Artist Tarah Singh Looks For Hidden Truths” – Blue Ridge Public Radio
2021 “Artist/Activist Gets The Word Out in Visual Language” – Asheville Made
2021 The Laurel of Asheville – gallery feature
2020 Mountain Xpress – personal paintings and global design initiatives
2020 The Asheville View – Artist Spotlight
2017 Who is Tarah Singh?
2016 Asheville Airport exhibit- flyavl.com
EDUCATION & MENTORSHIP
2013–2016 Blue Ridge Community College Fine Arts Program Flat Rock, NC
2004–2007 Vadim Bora Studio (painting, drawing, sculpture) Asheville, NC
2005 Life Drawing Workshop, Jean Lindaberry Asheville, NC
2005 Painting classes, Skip Rhode Asheville, NC
2003–2004 Mountain Phoenix School of Art Asheville, NC