Arpita Singh

A cluster of small, lemon-yellow islands - each shaped exactly like Cuba - hovers in a milky body of water.

- Vaishna Surjid

Standing between this trio of Cubas, a soldier raises his gun, ready for combat. This straggling fighter watches as, ahead of him, a squadron of his khaki-clad brothers-in-arms attacks an array of drowning victims, their blood-red arms waving for help. Dotted throughout this scene of oceanic carnage are an unexpected array of pink blooms, leaves and trees - signs of life amidst so much trauma. Evoking a militaristic strategy board game, replete with figurine soldiers spread across a map to plan warfare, Arpita Singh's painting My Lily Pond (2009) is at once absurd, turbulent and beautiful.

Political violence lurks in the background of several other paintings on display in 'Remembering', a survey of Singh's six-decade career at Serpentine North Gallery in London. There's the steely cool, gun-toting woman in Devi Pistol Wali (1990); the mythical battles from the Bhagavad Gita re-created in Whatever Is Here (2006); a saluting police officer in