About
Permindar Kaur’s artistic practice extends over more than three decades, during which time she has become one of Britain’s most original and innovative practitioner’s working in sculpture. Known as much for her deft manipulation of materials including glass, metal, and colourful fabrics, as for her evocative explorations of home, childhood and personal recollections, Kaur’s work nevertheless defies easy categorization. Often deploying familiar forms derived from intimate worlds of domestic life, Kaur’s sculpture is however, to some degree, analogous to the realm of the fairytale. With its fusion of the real and the imaginary, distortions of scale and form, Kaur’s practice expounds a remarkable, even magical world. In its assemblage of familial and unfamiliar motifs, Kaur’s work is at once alluring and contemplative, quizzical and sometimes baleful. With its an unerring capacity for exploring and experimenting through various forms of ciphers, Kaur’s prodigious practice is an unremitting force in creative invention. One that inspires us to bring our own memories and recollections to bear on her inimitable domain of the strangely familiar. (Richard Hylton)
Permindar Kaur is a British artist born in Nottingham to Sikh parents. Kaur is celebrated for her striking use of domestic and toylike forms coming to prominence in the 1990s. At that time, Kaur was loosely associated with both the YBA and Black British Art movements.
Kaur solo exhibitions include Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton (2026); Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, London (2025) Lightbox, Woking (2025); Frieze No 9 Cork Street/ Jhaveri Contemporary, London (2025); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2024); Radley Mews, London with Jhaveri Contemporary (2023); Niru Ratnam Gallery, London (2023); ArtHouse, Wakefield (2022); New Art Projects, London (2017); Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham (2014); Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nottingham (1998); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (1996); Mead Gallery, Warwick (1996); Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (1993).
Significant group exhibitions in the UK and internationally include The Box, Plymouth (2026 & 2022); Compton Verney, Warwickshire (2024/30); No 9 Cork Street/ Jhaveri Contemporary, London (2023); Saatchi Gallery, London (2023); Yorkshire Sculpture Park ( 2021 & 2017); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2021 & 1998); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2018); Tate Gallery, London (2000); Shizouka Arts Centre, Japan (1999); Hakata Riverain, Fukuoka, Japan (1999); Art Tower Mito, Mito, Japan (1997); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1997); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1997); Queens Museum of Art, New York, USA (1997); University Museum of Ethnography, Oslo, Norway (1997); Caribbean Cultural Centre, New York, USA (1996); British Art Show 4, Manchester, Cardiff & Edinburgh (1995); La Capella, Barcelona, Spain (1994); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (1992); BBC Billboard Art Project, Glasgow (1992); Arnolfini, Bristol (1991).
Photo © Brian Benson
Contact
News
Dread Naught
24 October 2026 – 11 April 2027. Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton.
Wolverhampton Art Gallery presents Permindar Kaur: Dread Naught, an exhibition of newly commissioned sculptures and important historic works by one of Britian’s most innovative sculptors. Dread Naught is Kaur’s largest show of new work to date, and features newly commissioned monumental figures formed from copper, as well as several pieces from her early career, including a remake of Innocence (1993/2026), now in the Arts Council Collection. More info here: Wolverhampton Art Gallery
The Way We Live
24 October 2026 – 21 February 2027. The Box, Plymouth
Inspired by Jill Craigie’s landmark 1946 film of the same name, The Way We Live explores Plymouth’s post-war reconstruction and the vision that shaped the city we know today. Through a rich display of archive material, stories and contemporary responses, the exhibition reflects on Plymouth’s past, present and future, celebrating the resilience, creativity and community spirit that continue to define the city.
More Info: The Box, Plymouth
Coming Back After Ten Years w:/ Permindar Kaur. On Motherhood, Persistence, and Rebuilding a Practice. Sept 10 2026. The Healthy Artist podcast with Martha Lamont
Permindar Kaur built real momentum early- a spot in the 1995 British Art Show, shows across Japan, Australia, the US and Europe. Then, after her second child, she stepped away from the studio for a decade. In this episode she talks about what that break really felt like, why she always knew she’d come back, and what it took to rebuild a practice on her own terms rather than anyone else’s timeline.
Listen on Spotify or Apple: Apple podcast
Sculpture in the Park, 19 Mar 2024 – Mar 2030. Compton Verney, Warwickshire.
A major new sculpture park will open in the grounds, with works by eight contemporary artists drawn from around the world. The sculpture park will include works from leading UK-based artists such as Sarah Lucas (b.1962), Permindar Kaur (b.1965), British-Ghanian artist Larry Achiampong (b.1984), London-based French artist Nicolas Deshayes (b.1983), Lithuanian artist Augustas Serapinas (b.1990), French-American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), British artist Helen Chadwick (1953-1996) and a new commission by Brazilian artist Erika Verzutti (b.1971).
More info: Compton Verney
Recent Past
Artist Talk – Permindar Kaur: Strange Bedfellows, Wed 28 Jan 2026, – 22 February 2026 Lightbox, Woking. Discover the extraordinary sculptural world of acclaimed British artist Permindar Kaur in this special lunchtime talk. Known for her unsettling yet playful use of domestic objects—beds, toys, chairs—Kaur will discuss her exhibition Strange Bedfellows, which explores the complex interplay of childhood, conflict, and identity. Kaur’s work is renowned for its ability to be both disarming and deeply contemplative. This is a rare opportunity to hear the artist reflect on her distinctive practice, her longstanding fascination with home and strangeness, and how she has brought these themes into dialogue with iconic works from The Ingram Collection.
Lightbox, Woking
Strange Bedfellows, 15 November – 22 February 2026. Lightbox, Woking. Discover the imaginative and forceful work of Permindar Kaur alongside selected work from The Ingram Collection. Permindar Kaur is a significant figure in contemporary British art, known for her whimsical and thought-provoking sculptural installations staged in major solo, group, and touring exhibitions across the UK and internationally.
Lightbox, Woking
Mirror, Mirror. 27 June – 21 September 2025, Pitzhanger Gallery, London
Mirror, Mirror is the largest solo presentation of Permindar Kaur’s work in a London institution to date and will take place across the main gallery and the historic manor. Kaur’s installations use a visual language of toys, clothing, and shelter to explore how domestic settings shape individuals, and how identity and background relates to these things.
More info: Pitzhanger Gallery
Staying with the ambivalence: an interview with Permindar Kaur, by Alina Khakoo, 26 Feb 2025. Published on ArtUK. Permindar Kaur (b.1965) is a sculptor known for her exploration of material and conceptual ambivalences. Since arriving on the British art scene at the turn of the 1990s, Kaur has paired softness with hardness, domesticity with threat, and the imposing with the invisible.
Read here: Art UK
Reflections and Doubles: Permindar Kaur and Prem Sahib at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery by Nikhil Sardana, 7 August 2025. Prem Sahib and Permindar Kaur present two compelling solo exhibitions at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, exploring themes of identity, visibility, vulnerability, and power through sculptural and spatial interventions that respond to the site’s layered histories.
Read here: Serenade Magazine
Permindar Kaur’s Chilling Yet Child-Friendly World, by Mark Rappolt. ArtReview vol 76 no 7, October 2024, pg 102. The artist conjures cartoonish monsters under the bed in an exhibition that feels less nightmarish than disarmingly cuddly.
ArtReview
Empire Lines podcast with Jelena Sofronijevica, Sept 26 2024
Artist and sculptor Permindar Kaur moves between the Black British Arts Movement, the Young British Artists (YBAs), and Barcelona in the 1990s, exploring the ambiguities of Indian and South Asian cultural identities.
Listen here: Empire Lines
All work © Permindar Kaur 2026