Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh, the Singh Twins, were born into a Sikh family in London in 1966 and raised in the Wirral. Their work is renowned for drawing on traditions of Indian miniatures to create a unique style within contemporary art practice.
Artists Amrit Kaur Singh and Rabindra Kaur Singh, known as the Singh Twins, were born into a Sikh family in London, England, in 1966, to Indian parents who immigrated from the Punjab. In 1974, the Twins moved with their family to the Wirral, Merseyside. They attended Holt Hill Convent School in Birkenhead, a strict Catholic high school, where they were the only Sikhs, but found artistic influences in the stained-glass windows and statues in the school chapel. Since childhood, the Twins have created art side by side, drawing and painting together. Although they intended to study medicine, their teachers ignored this and pushed them to pursue art instead. They decided to study Comparative Religion and Ecclesiastical History with Contemporary Western Art History at Chester College, then affiliated to Liverpool University, in 1985-87. During their degree, the Twins developed their own style in opposition to the Eurocentric approach of the art department, turning to traditions of Indian miniature painting which had inspired them on their first trip to India in 1980. Instructed by their tutors to be as dissimilar in their practices as possible, they rejected this to instead adopt collaboration and a shared artistic identity. They have said: 'We’ve always seen ourselves, in a sense, as one artist and presented ourselves as one artist. That goes back to the prejudice we experienced going through art school' (Lawrence Saunders, 'Interview: Renowned Wirral-raised artists The Singh Twins', YM Liverpool). Describing themselves as ‘Twindividuals’, they challenge the concepts of individuality and self-expression ingrained in western art education.
The Twins have since become known for pioneering a unique genre within contemporary art practice, often celebrating and exploring their own British Sikh Indian experiences. Their work combines techniques rooted in Indian art, such as spatial compositions and decorative conventions, with biting social, cultural and political commentary. They create detailed painted works, eclectic, symbolic and narrative in style, and use these to address issues of identity, gender and heritage. More recently, they have been working in mixed media, combining hand-painting techniques with digitally created imagery. The Twins have described their work as ‘Past Modern’, challenging stereotypes and narrow perceptions of heritage and identity, and asserting the crucial historical influence of traditional and non-western art. They draw on numerous sources for their eclectic style, fusing imagery and traditions from eastern and western art, and from old and new, including ancient Greek and Roman art, Persian and Medieval European manuscripts, Renaissance art, satirical art, the Pre-Raphaelites, photography, and pop culture. The Twins are also illustrators, writers, filmmakers and designers and have won awards for their films Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Via Dolorosa Project and The Making of Liverpool. In 2002, they were appointed Artists in Residence to the Manchester Commonwealth Games.
They have exhibited widely, including solo shows at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; National Portrait Gallery, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and National Museums Scotland. In 2002, they became the only British artist besides Henry Moore to have a solo show at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi. Public commissions include Liverpool 800: The Changing Face of Liverpool, celebrating the city’s 800th birthday and status as European Capital of Culture in 2008; Casualty of War: A Portrait of Maharaja Duleep Singh, a symbolic portrait of the deposed Ruler of the Sikh Kingdom of Punjab and first resident Sikh in the UK, in the National Museums Scotland; and a large-scale mixed media digital artwork commissioned by the Royal Collection Trust as part of a Splendours of the Subcontinent exhibition in 2018. Using history as a starting point for their work, the Twins have a great interest in 'cross-cultural connections and shared identities and histories' (Saunders, 'Interview'). Their exhibition Slaves of Fashion, first held at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 2018, was inspired by a case of fabrics the Twins saw in a museum in Nantes, France, produced in India for the transatlantic slave trade. Including work in a range of media, it explores the relationships between the British empire and India, wider legacies of colonialism, enslavement and conflict, and debates around identity, racism, trade and consumerism.
In 2011 the Twins were each awarded an MBE from the Queen. They also received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Chester in 2015 and from the University of Liverpool in 2018. A short film about their work, Alone Together (2001), was commissioned by the Arts Council and they have made numerous radio and television appearances, including featuring on Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4 in 2020. The Singh Twins live and work in Liverpool. Their work is held in UK public collections including National Museums Scotland and Museum of Liverpool. Their work featured in Ben Uri's online exhibition Midnight's Family: 70 Years of Indian Artists in Britain during August-September 2020.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [The Singh Twins]
Publications related to [The Singh Twins] in the Ben Uri Library