Hardeep Pandhal

Hardeep Pandhal’s digital animations, drawings, textile work and multimedia installations confront the toxic legacies of empire. His art makes direct reference to his Sikh heritage and to the many types of racism that he has experienced. Layered narratives – delivered via rap and elliptical wordplay and through the visual language of ‘gutter media’, such as comics and video games – excavate tangled histories of post-colonialism and misogyny, creating, in his words, ‘syncretic strains of post-brown weirdness’ while reflecting the ‘exaggerated madness’ of real life.

The Happy Punjabi Gothic series was created at Edinburgh Printmaker’s studio as part of the exhibition Transparency in 2019, curated by Mother Tongue and installed here at Edinburgh Printmakers. The exhibition responded to the architectural heritage of the Castlemills site – as a former silk factory, premises of the North British Rubber Company, and brewery – now occupied by Edinburgh Printmakers. To learn more about the working class and industrial history, click here to listen to the stories behind the people working at the Factory. To know more about Pandhal reflection on the Castle Mills history, click on the artworks below and 'Read More'.

BIOGRAPHY

Hardeep Pandhal was born in Birmingham in 1985. He lives and works in Glasgow. Pandhal received a Leverhulme Scholarship to complete the MFA programme at The Glasgow School of Art in 2013, following which he was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2013 and Collective gallery’s 2015 Satellites programme.

Recent solo exhibitions of Pandhal’s work include: Paranoid Picnic: The Phantom BAME, New Art Exchange and Primary, Nottingham (2018); Self-Loathing Flashmob, Kelvin Hall, Glasgow International 2018, Glasgow; Liar Hydrant, Cubitt, London (2018); Konfessions of a Klabautermann, Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, Berwick-upon-Tweed (2017); and A Nightmare on BAME Street, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2017). Recent group exhibitions include: Is This Tomorrow?, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); 2018 Triennial: Songs for Sabotage,  New Museum, New York (2018); The House of Fame, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2018); The Vanished Reality, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2016); and The Panj Piare Assemble, Grand Union, Birmingham (2014).

He was shortlisted for the 2018 Film London Jarman Award, and was recently commissioned by Channel 4 as part of the ‘Random Acts’ series, the broadcaster’s short film strand dedicated to the arts. He has undertaken a series of residencies, including Cove Park (2018), the National Theatre of Scotland Starter Residency (2017), Hospitalfield Arts Arbroath (2016), and the Drawing Room Bursary (2015).

Published responses and reflections on Pandhal’s work-to-date have been published in Vitamin T: Threads and Textiles in Contemporary Art, Phaidon (2019), 2018 Triennial: Songs for Sabotage catalogue. New Museum, Phaidon (2018), and the Kaleidoscope catalogue. Modern Art Oxford (2016). www.hardeeppandhal.com