Permindar Kaur is a sculpture/ installation artist, whose approach to art is playful, using childlike objects to explore the territory of cultural identity, home and belonging. She uses simple forms, for instance furniture (beds, cots and chairs) and toys (soft, brightly coloured figures, trucks and animal forms). These objects resemble displaced domestic belongings, which have been distorted and manipulated to invoke the uncanny. They are deceptively familiar in their appearance and initially might remind the viewer of innocence, childhood and play belying their sinister undertones.

Kaur has exhibited internationally; major solo exhibitions include Home, 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG (2020-21); Interlopers, University of Hertfordshire (2016); Hiding Out, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham Lakeside Arts (2014); Untitled, Berwick Gymnasium Art Gallery, Berwick (1999) and Cold Comfort, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Mead Gallery, Coventry (1996).

Major group exhibition include Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women since 1945 (2021-23) YSP & UK tour; Ikon in the 90’s, Ikon Gallery (2021);  Animals & Us, Turner Contemporary (2018); A Vision of Utopia, Spirella Building, Letchworth (2014); At Home with Art, Tate Britain, London and touring (2000); Hot Air, Granship, Shizouka Arts Centre, Japan (1999); Pictura Britannica, Art from Britain, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1997); British Art Show, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff (1995). Permindar Kaur completed her MA at Glasgow School of Art, she lives and works in the UK.

Kaur has taken part in a number of talks at leading institutions including at the Tate, Ikon Gallery and Lakeside Arts.
Visit the Talks page

Full CV

Breaking The Mould: Sculpture by Women Since 1945, 26 March – 5 June 2022. The Levinsky Gallery, University of Plymouth and The Box, Plymouth. An Arts Council Touring exhibition. Breaking the Mould is the first extensive survey of post-war British sculpture by artists identifying as women in a public institution. Spanning more than seventy years and exploring the work of fifty sculptors, this exhibition provides a radical recalibration, addressing the many accounts of British sculpture that have marginalised women or airbrushed their work out of the art historical canon altogether and includes sculptors such as Phyllida Barlow, Rachel Whiteread, Holly Hendry, Sarah Lucas, Veronica Ryan, Anthea Hamilton, and Cornelia Parker.
The Box, Plymouth

What Lies Beneath: Women, Politics, Textiles, 17 Feb – Aug 28th 2022. New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge, Cambridge. This exhibition brings together works by women artists and collectives using the medium of textiles to comment on gender and society. Artists: Miriam Schapiro, Permindar Kaur, Francisca Aninat, Enam Gbewonyo, Nengi Omuku, Anya Paintsil, Memorarte, Stella Mae Pettway (Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers), Nicola L., Tejedoras de Mampuján. Curated by Naomi Polonsky and Dr Lorna Dillon.
Women’s Art Collection

Weaving Cultural and Personal Memory: Academic Symposium, April 28, 2-7 pm. The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. Keynote speeches by Ann Coxon: Curator, International Art at Tate Modern and Permindar Kaur: Artist in What Lies Beneath: Women, Politics, Textiles.
Watch here Permindar discuss her work at 1.06.43.

The Art House in Wakefield has announced its 2022 artistic programme featuring an exciting range of exhibitions that will explore important social issues alongside major residencies, artist support programmes, and new site-specific commissions. Highlights include the major presentation of HOME by internationally acclaimed artist Permindar Kaur – including new work made especially for this show during a summer residency at The Art House – exploring a common central question in her practice: ‘where is home?
The ArtHouse

Permindar Kaur: Locating a ‘Black’ Artist in Narratives of British Art in the 1990s. Essay by Alice Correia for Art History, June 2021
This special issue of Art History looks closely at the multi-faceted genealogies of Black British modernism since the arrival of the ‘Windrush generation’. It brings together a range essays in different formats by artists and art historians to centralize the lack of attention paid to the material and conceptual nature of artworks made by Black British artists, and asks how a reappraisal of their work can contribute to an expanded understanding of modernism.
Read full essay here: Art History

The catalogue for HOME is now available with 21 colour images and critical texts by Dr Alice Correia and Dr Eddie Chambers. Copies are available for purchase at £10.
Email: mark@theartistsagency.co.uk The Artist Agency
Or Ikon Gallery Shop