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April 2003
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London born artists and twin sisters Amrit and Rabindra have exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. Whilst drawing essentially on the Indian miniature tradition, their award winning paintings combine elements from Western and Eastern aesthetics to create a unique genre in British Art practice which asserts the value of traditional and non European art forms to the continuing development of Contemporary Art practice. Describing their work as Past - Modern (as opposed to Post Modern), they challenge existing stereotypes and redefine generally accepted, narrow perceptions of heritage and identity - exploring cultural, social and political issues of global significance within a highly decorative, often witty and symbolic style which has universal appeal and transcends cultural barriers.
Their art and collaborative partnership developed largely in response to the serious criticisms they faced during their first degree in art for having common interests and goals in formulating respective personal styles which were not only deemed to be unacceptable because of their similarity but because they were 'inappropriately' routed in an Eastern cultural aesthetics and their experience as British Asians.
Against this hostility their determined exploration of the Indian miniature style and established practice of working and exhibiting together (as well as dressing identically), is a political statement against the hypocrisy of an establishment which advocated self expression as the ‘be all and end all’ of Modern Art, yet denied the validity of anything which did not comply with the expectations dictated by a selective, Eurocentric perspective. Whilst asserting the right to define their own cultural and artistic ‘individuality’ in a way that is meaningful and true to who they are as British Asians, artists and twins, their work more importantly, redresses the need to re evaluate established cultural definitions, values and role models within the wider context of an evolving global society.
With paintings in private and public collections world wide the Singh Twins (as they are more popularly known) continue to be invited to present lectures on their work at institutions such as the Tate Gallery, London; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada; University of California, Santa Barbara and the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. At the same time a growing interest from academics, individual art students and University research graduates generally, has resulted in their work being incorporated into the Open University syllabus and other sectors of the formal education sector. Twin Perspectives, a fine art publication detailing the Twins’ work over the past 12 years has been adopted as a resource in art departments across the UK.
As well as being profiled in numerous main stream publications their work has attracted International media attention. Radio and Television appearances include interviews for BBC’s Womens’ Hour, Mid Week and Belief and the Granada TV documentary Singh Out Sisters. An independently commissioned Arts Council film about their work, (‘Alone Together’) received 'The Best Film On Art' prize at the 2001 Asolo International Film Festival. In the same year they were short-listed for the Asian Women of Achievement Awards (in the category of Arts & Culture) and more recently, were appointed official Artists in Residence to the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The work they produced in response to the Games gained wide publicity and was even featured as a question on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?
In 2002 their solo India tour was launched at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi - making them the only British artists (besides Henry Moore) to have been offered a solo show at this, one of India’s foremost venues for Contemporary Art. Future plans for 2003 onwards include exhibitions in the USA, Canada and Europe.
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