Art With Twin Appeal: Singh Twins at Peel Art Gallery Museum
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| Singh Twins in PAMA - Brampton Art Gallery Photo by Herman Custodio |
For Stephen Weir Blog
There is a certain privacy that the Singh Twins have. They communicate in a way that few can, together from the start and best friends to the end. Creating beautifully intricate modern yet traditional paintings as a partnership, a single entity, creating an aura of mystery to their work.
"Our identities are linked to each
other but we also have very independent ideas on what we want to do, they just
happen to be the same ideas."
The Singh Twins were in Brampton last week
promoting their latest show the Peel Art Gallery, Museum+Archives (PAMA) as a
part of Sikh Heritage Month. It was a welcome visit for the artists who said
that the same of the patrons that they saw at the museum were just children the
last time they were in Ontario. The youngsters of the Sikh community came with
a confidence that was not seen during that earlier visit.
"PAMA is a wonderful venue and we hope
a lot more people can come to see it. You don't have to go to the big city to
see great art, a great asset to the community."
The Singh Twins see themselves as "us
as an united front against the rest of the world". When Amrit and Rabindra
Singh were growing up outside of Liverpool their teachers tried to separate
them, wanting to cultivate their individually. It didn't sit well with the sisters.
"Other people in class were allowed to sit beside their best friend, it
just so happened that we were best friends and twins," they said during a
Skype interview. Their teachers certainly had no idea back then that the two
would become award-winning artists. It bothers them not that they are viewed as
a single entity but that they have seen that there is an attitude in academia that
there is something wrong with having the same goals.
The Twins went on to obtain degrees in
Comparative Religion, Ecclesiastical History and 20th Century Western Art
History followed by a period of Postgraduate study at Manchester University.
While at Manchester they won a Government of India, INTACH Scholarship, to
carry out field research into their chosen subject of Sikh Art and Heritage. In
1997 the Twins decided that they were going to be full-time artists. Two years
later they were taking part in their first solo tour of their work in the UK.
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| Nineteen 84 - Signature painting at the PAMA exhibition |
The Singh Twins have always had strong
connection with their Sikh heritage. A trip that they made with their family in
1980 deepened that connection and it is seen in their work.
For 9-months the family traveled across
Europe and the Middle East in a motor home that their father and his brothers
had built to suit the Indian roads.
"We spent that time traveling around
to wherever suited our fancy."
The trip was a homecoming to go to their
father's birthplace. He had left India as a small child 30 years prior.That
trip had a "big impact on our thinking and art" the Singh Twins said.
As youngsters they had copied the art from
their Victorian style children's books. Had they not gone on this trip their
art path may have been quite different for it was during this time that they
were introduced to the detailed art of Indian miniature painting.
They have updated the traditional style in
small ways. “We use fairly modern material, mount board.” The paper base is
museum quality canvas which takes the place of palm leafs (that was the
traditional canvas. )
Their subjects are very much of our time
period merging tradition and current culture. They have a mindset in both the
traditional ways and their British upbringing, "a foot in both
camps." British identity, they have observed, has changed over the past
five decades with the wave of new cultures making impacts on centuries of English
tradition. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to pinpoint a certain
singular British way.
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| From the Singh Twins Marilyn Femininity Series |
They enjoy Liverpool saying that it is a
quite small, compact city with a very active artist community. The Singh Twins
feel “being in Liverpool has given us a platform to promote ourselves and
enhance our profiles as artists" that they may not have gotten elsewhere.
As part of work for the city's 800th birthday the sisters researched and then painted the city's Maritime history.
They are very much contemporary British
artists and refuse to be marginalized as 'ethnic'. The Singh Twins have found
that "there is still a glass ceiling in some circles of our work. We draw
very heavily on non-European tradition -- that is still a factor for some people and
they want to pigeon-hole you into ethnic categories."
There is less prejudge today then when they
started out, still they know that there are certain times like the upcoming
70th anniversary of India's independence from the UK where they are getting
offered commission in no small part because of their heritage. This is a plus for
the sisters. In India their work has been well received and their fame
continues to grow.
In their few down times the Singh Twins
enjoy traveling and would love to return to Brampton and Toronto when they have
time.
Currently they are working on their next
show, a solo exhibition in London next year. They have been commissioned for 20
works with India's textile industry as their theme. The twins have completed five
pieces for the show and are confident that they will be ready when it is time.
It's a global story that is waiting to be revealed with each stroke of their
brushes.
PEEL ART GALLERY, MUSEUM AND ARCHIVES
The Singh Twins: A Retrospective
- April 1 – June 12, 2016 Sikh Heritage Month: April 1 – 30, 2016
Singh Twins in PAMA - Brampton Art Gallery Photo by Herman Custodio
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