Q&A: Permindar Kaur on sculpture, identity and Dread Naught
Artist Permindar Kaur reflects on her New Contemporaries experience, from exhibiting at the ICA in 1992 to returning as a selector more than 30 years later. Ahead of her new exhibition, Dread Naught, at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, she discusses her practice, the ideas behind her latest work and her advice for early career artists.
Tell us about your art practice
I make sculptures and installations to explore themes of childhood, cultural identity, vulnerability and the home. I use simple domestic forms which play with and distort scale to bring about a precarious and unsettling dichotomy between playfulness and the uncanny, or the fairytale and the nightmare.
How was your NC experience and what have you been up to since then?
It was great! I remember showing in NC in 1992 at the ICA as a young student at the Glasgow School of Art. It was an exciting experience – I got to travel to London, see my work in a major venue and meet a range of artists.
I showed the work Arrival, two double-headed spears atop which were glass objects I’d made. My parents came to the UK with their precarious dreams. I wanted to represent this. They allowed me to pierce the wooden floor with the spears. There were no barriers. There’s a precarity here, if anyone had knocked into the work the glass objects would have smashed onto the floor.
About two years ago, I returned to NC to choose who was selected for the new show. I loved getting to look at so much art, to see what interests’ early career artists and what directions the art world may take.
Tell us about your upcoming exhibition
My new show Dread Naught at Wolverhampton Art Gallery opens on the 23 October. The show hones in on protection and defence, detaching from the domestic. Prominently featured is my new body of work – these large, barren copper figures, rather monstrous in nature with their broad shoulders and small heads. Dread nothing. It’s as though the figures have been worn down time and time again. They have become hollow shells, with nothing to fear. Alongside this, I am showcasing key early works.
Do you have any advice for early career artists?
Be curious, make good work, persevere, and work together to build your network.