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 Outgrown (2022), The ArtHouse, Wakefield; 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); 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

A Spirit Inside 23 Sept – 14 Jan 2024, The Lightbox, Woking.
A Spirit Inside brings together work of a selection of women artists from The Ingram Collection and The Women’s Art Collection in Cambridge, to showcase artworks that have been borne out of a strength of spirit and touch upon the elemental, fantastical, spiritual and political.
The Lightbox

Are You A Women In Authority? 30 Sept -16th Nov 2023, Phoenix Art Space, Brighton.
Broken Grey Wires and Phoenix Art Space present an exhibition of work by artists who explore empowerment, gender, and community in their practice. Janine Antoni – Bobby Baker  – Lizz Brady – kevanté ac cash – Lynn Hershman Leeson  – Permindar Kaur – Sarah Lucas – Sarah Maple  – Tracey Moffatt – Jade Montserrat – Zanele Muholi – Anya Paintsil – Charlotte Prodger – Martha Rosler – Carol Sommer
Phoenix Art Space

If Not Now, When? Generations of Women in Sculpture in Britain, 1960 – 2022,  31 March – 15 October 2023, The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield. The exhibition explores the lives of women sculptors in Britain during a significant period of social and artistic change. It presents the outcomes of a significant research project, Hepworth’s Progeny in collaboration with art historian Griselda Pollock and sculptor Lorna Green. Curated by Kerry Harker & Anna Douglas. Work on show: Independence 
Hepworth Wakefield

Naissance/Re-Naissance, 1 July – 31 July, Curated by Hettie Judah, Unit London gallery (online). Kaur brings the uncanny to familiar and otherwise comforting domestic objects. Her teddy bears are subtly unbalanced, their animal nature betrayed by copper claws or horns. The archetypal Western toy is dressed up in a sequinned gown and bestowed a female Indian identity in Red Dress, while the Blue Indian Teddy carries the outsized horns of a prehistoric animal. They become hybrid figures – British-Indian, beastly playthings.
Unit London

Researching women in sculpture: a discussion event at the Henry Moore Institute, published in ‘Pioneering Women’ … the special issue of The Sculpture Journal 32.1, March 2023
Full text here: Sculpture Journal

Art Dubai Contemporary, 1 – 5 March with Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai at Art Dubai, UAE
Art Dubai

Friday Dispatch – Contemporary Art Society, Fri 24 Feb by Christine Takengny. Review of The Room, Niru Ratnam Gallery
Contemporary Art Society

The Room, 25 Jan – 25 Feb 2023, Niru Ratnam Gallery, London. Writing on Permindar Kaur’s recent solo exhibition at The Art House in Wakefield the art critic Hettie Judah observed: “Blending the soft with the spiky, comfort with threat, the domestic with hints of something wild, Permindar Kaur’s sculptures explore the subtleties of belonging.” Since her emergence into the British art scene in the early 1990s, Kaur’s practice has embraced incongruous dualities. In her work the domestic is both a place of shelter and threat. Motifs such as beds, cushions and childhood toys took on a more surreal and disturbing quality through Kaur’s manipulation of scale and juxtaposition of materials.
View works here: Niru Ratnam Gallery

Outgrown publication – Limited edition, signed, softback on removable screen-printed greyboard.
40 pages, published 2022 by The Art House. ISBN: 1-908432-19-5
Texts by Natalie Rudd, writer, independent curator, and researcher, and Damon Jackson-Waldock, Programme Director, The Art House. Buy here: Arthouse shop
Overgrown House Limited Edition Screen Print for ArtHouse.
Shop – ArtHouse

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