(May 27, 2024) They dress alike, down to matching earrings, bangles, and other accessories. The artists call themselves ‘twinindividuals’ and prefer working together on their art projects. Even if one has done the work entirely, the credit is always shared as ‘The Singh Twins’. They also prefer being addressed as ‘Twins’ in their email correspondences.
Talking about individualism, the artists remarked in one of the interviews, “It’s because it is such a big concept that it’s something we wanted to challenge.”
Twins Amrit Singh and Rabindra Kaur Singh are internationally acclaimed contemporary British Indian artists whose award-winning work revolves around significant social, political, and cultural issues. Their art challenges and redefines Eurocentric views of art, heritage, and identity.
The Singh Twins at work
The Singh Twins have been honoured with the title of the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by late Queen Elizabeth II for their ‘services to the Indian miniature tradition of painting within contemporary art’ in 2011. The University of Chester as well as the University of Wolverhampton conferred them with the honorary degrees of Doctor of Fine Arts and Doctor of Arts respectively for their contribution to British art and for depicting diversity in the arts. They were also conferred with the honourary Doctor of Letters from the University of Liverpool.
The Singh Twins’ art pieces are influenced by Indian miniature paintings but address British contemporary culture and explore themes such as globalisation, migration, and celebrity culture.
Artists by chance
Growing up, Amrit and Rabindra studied at the same school and went to the same college. Born in Richmond, Surrey, and raised in Birkenhead, they were the only non-Catholics to attend their Catholic convent school, Holt Hill Convent. Like their father, who worked as a general practitioner, they wanted to become doctors. However, when it was time to go to the university, one of their school teachers, recognising their exceptional talent in art, assumed they were being pressured into studying medicine. The teacher went as far as warning the university they had applied to, claiming the twins’ decision was ‘because of family tradition and parental persuasion.’
The Singh Twins with late queen Elizabeth II
The university acted on the teacher’s word, and the twins were forced to enrol in a humanities programme at University College Chester. There, they studied comparative Western art, among other subjects, and later went on to study art at Manchester University. However, the teacher’s misinterpretation proved to be a boon in the long run, as their art transformed from a hobby into a vocation, leading to their rise as globally acclaimed artists. Their work has been exhibited in the US, Canada, India, and the UK, earning them wide acclaim.
The British Indian twins have faced their share of challenges too in the country where they were born. Despite their extensive list of commissions, exhibitions, and earning the MBE, they sometimes faced criticism in the UK. “It is decorative, it’s figurative, it’s narrative, it’s small scale, and it comes from a non-European perspective,” is what people remarked about their art, Rabindra shared. However, such remarks did not deter them from their artistic paths.
Broad body of work
Although they are more widely known for their paintings, The Singh Twins are also accomplished illustrators, writers, filmmakers, and designers. Their award-winning films include ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Via Dolorosa Project,’ a short documentary about one of their most renowned political works depicting the storming of the Golden Temple in 1984, and ‘The Making of Liverpool,’ an animated film.
In recent years, their continuous pursuit of creative innovation has led them to explore digital technologies and collaborate with renowned Indian fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani, whose collections have been inspired by their artwork. This collaboration sparked their interest in developing a high-end fashion accessories and home decor label under The Singh Twins banner.
The Singh Twins during one of the exhibitions of their work
The twins even flew to Mumbai to join Tarun Tahiliani at the catwalk at Lakme Fashion Week few years back. “Apparently he’s been a fan of our work for quite some time, and we couldn’t have got a better collaboration in terms of profile and the respect he has in the fashion world internationally,” Amrit had remarked after the event.
Integral part of the UK art heritage
Apart from being featured in private and public collections worldwide, the twins have been an integral part of the art scene in their birth country, the United Kingdom.
In 2018, their large-scale mixed media digital artwork, specially commissioned by the Royal Collection Trust was exhibited at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, as part of the ‘Splendours of the Subcontinent’ exhibition.
The Singh Twins at a packed house event at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
Some of their most well-known public commissions include two works celebrating Liverpool’s 800th birthday and its status as the European Capital of Culture, and a symbolic portrait of Maharaja Duleep Singh, the deposed ruler of the Sikh Kingdom of Punjab and the first resident Sikh in the UK, created for the National Museum, Scotland. Their work has also been commissioned by the Museum of London.
Making diaspora proud
Apart from receiving the prestigious MBE honour by the late queen, The Singh Twins have garnered numerous awards and official recognitions for their work. They were made Honorary Citizens of their home city of Liverpool, and in 2009, they received the UK Asian Achievers Awards for Media, Arts, and Culture. Their work has not only attracted international media attention but also made them subjects of feature documentaries like CBC’s ‘Here and Now’, the Granada TV documentary ‘Singh Out Sisters’, and Simon Schama’s BBC art series ‘The Face of Britain’.
The independently commissioned Arts Council film about their work, ‘Alone Together’, won the Best Film on Art prize at the Asolo International Film Festival. The artists have also got featured in several books.
The Singh Twins with their MBE Medals
In 2002, The Singh Twins were appointed official Artists in Residence for the Manchester Commonwealth Games. One of the works they created for the event gained such international publicity, that it even became subject of one of the questions on the popular TV quiz show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’
Through their diverse achievements and widespread recognition, The Singh Twins continue to inspire and uplift the global diaspora. The inseparable twins joked about their joint collaborations, remarking, “Mostly we manage not to injure each other with our paintbrushes!”
