Kaur Twins' Art
Growing International Reputation
July 18
England
www.thisislondon.co.uk
from "Artists' Eastern Premise"
by Maya Jaggi
Anyone who imagines that Bollywood kitsch is the only Indian art form thriving in Britain this summer will find the work of the Singh twins an eye-opener. Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh, London-born twin sisters, are young British artists with a unique style and a growing international reputation.
Their main inspiration
comes from Indian miniatures, exquisite court painting that had its heyday
in the 16th century but survives only among the copyists of the tourist trade.
The twins updated it to celebrate the domestic intimacies of British Asian
life, and to satirize targets ranging from the Reagan and Thatcher love-in
to nuclear arsenals and genetic engineering.
A 15-year retrospective opens at Watermans' gallery in Brentford on Saturday.
It is their biggest-ever show in the capital, and later tours to India, the
US and Canada.
Born in Richmond in 1966, the sisters moved to the Wirral, on
Merseyside, when they were seven. Now 36, they still live there in the extended
family home. They had ideas of becoming doctors like their father, a retired
GP, but discovered miniature paintings when they were teenagers on their first
trip to India, in 1980.
"It was a whole new world," says Rabindra. "There
weren't many Asians on the Wirral then. "We were bowled over by the miniature
technique, the skill and the symbolism," especially from the time of
the Mughal emperors who built the Taj Mahal. Yet they were disappointed to
find no trace of that heritage in India's modern art galleries. "Artists
were aping western art. It's a hangover from colonialism, where West is best."
They paint, says Amrit, "on a Rota system, clocking on
and off", or side by side. "We're so in tune. Sometimes one's facing
the painting the right way up, while the other's upside down."
Court miniaturists often worked as teams, too. The twins trained
by copying reproductions from books, creating what they call their "past
modern", rather than post-modern, style. Other inspirations range from
the Catholic iconography of their convent school days to fairy-tale illustrations
by Edmund Dulac (Hans Christian Andersen and The Arabian Nights), art nouveau
and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Much early work celebrates family life, often showing the artists,
dressed identically, as they are in life. "All That I Am" tells
their father's story, from leaving Amritsar during the partition of India
in 1947 and working as a salesman in Manchester, to succeeding as a doctor.
In scenes of Indian weddings, barbecues and Christmas dinners, Indian dress
and the religious icons of the twins' Sikh faith sit alongside camcorders
and Superman toys. In one, women prepare a groom under the fascinated gaze
of white neighbors, while the men play snooker. "Early on we felt forced
to make a choice between being Asian or English," says Amrit. "But
our domestic scenes are about being able to balance both happily." In
some paintings, support for Liverpool FC unites the city.
They are keen to show "there's more to modern art than unmade beds and sharks in formaldehyde". They fault an "art establishment" as "self-indulgent, centered on the individuality of the artist, and removed from the wider world," says Amrit. "Our work is there to communicate, to get people to rethink. Art has to look beyond the emotions and psyches of the artist." ‘The Singh Twins' Collection is at Watermans, 40 High Street, Brentford, (020 8232 1010) from Saturday until 15 August, 12-9pm. free admission.