Bach Singh on control, chaos and the work that finds you

Bach Singh on control, chaos and the work that finds you

‘More than anything, I try to avoid making work that feels overworked, regardless of the medium. When I see something suggestive, expressive, impressionistic—something human—I feel revitalised. That’s when the work feels most honest and aligned with what I’m trying to do.‘

– Your work is a mix of different art media: ink, watercolour and acrylic. How do you decide which piece needs to be created with what?

I tend to go with ink and watercolour when I want the drawing/painting to have a good amount of detail. I feel like I can control those mediums more and achieve a more naturalistic look. So when I want to draw an overgrown, derelict landscape or depict urban architecture and its residents, I go with these. Sometimes it can be restrictive, but for me it helps achieve a more high-fidelity representation of the subject. If the goal of the piece is to represent a real place like Handsworth, I want more control over texture and lighting. It’s also important when it comes to skin tone, facial features, and representing race, identity, and culture. It doesn’t always feel the freest or most forgiving, but when it works, it’s worth the struggle.

When I want to experiment, be bold, and express myself, I choose oil. Oil is much more forgiving than watercolour—I can work darker and lighter at the same time, go over things, and build up layers. It’s so free that it often pushes the work towards abstraction. It’s good for giving a low-fidelity impression, which speaks more to my senses and connects to ideas of in-between-ness, hard-to-describe feelings, and emotion. I like using cotton buds to draw, almost like oil pastels—a technique I learnt from printmaking. They make great marks and feel more like drawing than traditional painting. The paper becomes a bit of a playground with oil, which feels exhilarating, but I’m not as confident using it for work that needs to be representational or serve a clear purpose, like my illustrations.

– You seem to be an outdoor artist more than anything. How much of your environment is present in your work and is this a conscious decision to be in public when you create or are other factors involved?

I mostly go outdoors to paint when the weather is nice—it’s a good excuse to take a speaker out, play some music, and make a day of it. Those sessions are more about practising than making finished work. Like most artists, I spend a lot of time in the studio producing final pieces, but working outside helps keep my skills sharp and my observation in check.

Being in public is also great for getting people interested in art—to look at what I’m drawing and see things through an artistic lens. What I enjoy most is when children and young people get excited. I really want to encourage that creativity. I also like connecting with people and having those small interactions—it stays with me.

That said, I’m always nervous when I start. I feel exposed, like people are watching to judge whether I’m good or not. But once I get into it, it almost always turns into a good day.

I also go out to take reference photos. I’m drawn to small, overlooked details—gutters, electric meters, industrial fans—things that quietly tell a story. I use these in the studio, but I don’t want to make purely photographic work. Drawing from life has taught me how to pace myself, when to leave things open or ambiguous, and when to rely on memory. Photos hold all the detail, but I want them to act as prompts—memory plays just as big a role in shaping the final piece.

– Do you wish you could control the outcome as much as you can control the tools you use to create your pieces?

I don’t want to control the outcome anymore. When I was younger, I did—because I felt like I had something to prove. The work felt like it said something definitive about me, so controlling the outcome meant I could present exactly what I wanted, hiding any cracks or weaknesses. Now, I see those works as some of the most insincere and weakest.

As a person, I’ve grown more comfortable in my own skin and let go of that need for control. I’ve come to love the process of being lost—of discovering images or areas of interest rather than forcing them. I want to explore and find things I couldn’t have imagined beforehand.

To be open about it, this is also a kind of rebellion against Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which I’ve lived with my whole life. Letting go, embracing the unknown, allowing mistakes—just being human, not trying to perform as “the artist.” I’m Bach Singh, curious about the mystery of art. I’m tired of trying to be an artist.

– Has there been a piece that you started outside that has been impacted by the people around you?

Definitely. I’ve painted in places like Birmingham Market, which is full of characters. Some people are really friendly—they stop, ask questions, and want to understand what I’m doing. That interaction forces me to step back and reflect on the work, which is something I might otherwise forget to do.
Others are more direct—people shouting “yo, draw me”—and I’ll just go with it. It becomes part of the moment, something shared. It’s fun, and it creates good memories for both of us.

I’ve also had more unexpected experiences. In Spain, someone invited me into their home to show me their art. I’ve been invited to dinners and into personal studios just from being outside drawing. So it doesn’t just affect the work—it affects me as well. Those kinds of encounters make me feel very lucky.

– Has there been a point during a painting where you felt like it needed to be created using other mediums?

Yes, and I notice this more now than before. I used to think of oil as purely for abstract or expressive work, and watercolour and ink for detailed description. But the more I work, the more those boundaries blur. I’ve realised I can achieve precision with oil, and also be expressive with ink and watercolour.
There have been times where I’ve used oil over watercolour when something wasn’t working, but generally I prefer to finish what I’ve started and then respond with another piece if needed.

More than anything, I try to avoid making work that feels overworked, regardless of the medium. When I see something suggestive, expressive, impressionistic—something human—I feel revitalised. That’s when the work feels most honest and aligned with what I’m trying to do.

Overworking, in any medium, leaves me frustrated. Finding that balance is difficult because the work is self-directed—there’s no clear endpoint. How do you know when something is finished?
I think about each mark almost like a move in chess. It’s about asking how few moves I can make to reach what I’m aiming for. I’d rather leave something slightly unresolved than push it too far. For me, restraint has become more important than control.

Also, my latest project called ‘Yours Sincerely’. They’re Monoprints. If you’d like to feature this in anyway that would be awesome, this work is not like the outdoor stuff.

At its core, the project suggests that the human condition today is defined by a persistent mismatch between what we feel and what we can express. We build systems—social, technological, linguistic—to organise and communicate our experience, yet those same systems inevitably reduce, filter, or misdirect it. The result is not silence but a kind of over-articulation, where everything is said and shared, yet something essential remains unspoken or unreceived.
The works point to a self that is continually externalised—projected into structures that promise clarity and connection—but never fully held by them. Identity becomes partial, assembled, and contingent on the systems it passes through. Within this, isolation doesn’t come from being cut off, but from being constantly connected in ways that fail to register depth.

The subtle ruptures in the work suggest that this excess—of feeling, of experience, of interior life—cannot be fully contained. Something always leaks out, misaligns, or resists translation. In that sense, the project doesn’t present failure as collapse, but as a quiet, ongoing condition: to be human is to exist within systems that help us function, yet never fully account for who we are.

– How do you hope people experience your art? Long after you’re gone, what do you want people to think about when they examine a piece and do you think the work you are creating now is communicating that effectively?

I want people to get a sense of what interested me as a person, and maybe have some sort of insight into their own lives through that. With the abstract work, I’d like people to sit with it and question it a bit—what is this saying, what is this doing, or even just accept that it doesn’t fully resolve. With the more direct work, I just want people to feel something. I don’t really care what they feel, but if it doesn’t make you feel anything then I’m not sure it’s worked.

Not everyone will respond the way I might expect, and to be honest, the work I make now is really for me. I make what I want for me, and then I share it when I feel like it. If people connect with it or engage with the mystery, that’s great, but if not, that’s fine too. Not everything should be for everyone, and if it is, it’s probably not that good. How can the most agreeable thing be that incredible? I’d rather a few people really get it than everyone just sort of like it. I’d even rather people hate it, because that’s still a strong feeling.

I think it’s important that the work challenges people a bit. If it’s too easy, there’s nothing to hold onto. I leave things ambiguous so people can pour themselves into it and fill in the blanks with their own experience. Maybe it’s about letting people see through my eyes for a moment—sharing how I experience things.
But I don’t want that idea of legacy or reception to drive what I do. Most of life is about proving something or achieving something for others, but art is the one place where I don’t want that. When I make something and it feels right, it soothes me. If the work excites me, then I feel like I’ve done what I needed to, even if it doesn’t land with other people.

Long after I’m gone, I don’t really care if people think I wasn’t technically amazing, because I’m not. If anything, I’d just want people to get a sense of the ideas I was working through, and how I saw things. That’s enough.