About the work

This drawing belongs to a series based on British Sikh soldiers, which I have been making since 2010, after I first learned about colonial soldiers’ contributions to both World Wars. I see the figure as a malleable character, connoting multiplicity or monstrosity. I often place it in my larger drawings and animations, which layer poetic text and voice.

Date and country of birth

1985, GB

About the artist

Born 1985 Birmingham, Hardeep Pandhal lives and works in Glasgow. Graduated from BA Leeds Beckett University (2007), and MFA Glasgow School of Art (2013).

Pandhal works predominantly with drawing and voice to transform feelings of disinheritance and disaffection into generative spaces that bolster interdependence and self-belief. Applying practices of associative thinking, his research-led projects exhibit syncretic strains of post-brown weirdness. Across media, his works are imbued with acerbity and playful complexity; at once confrontational and reflective.

His work is held in public and private collections including UK Arts Council Collection; British Council Collection; and Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow.

Selected exhibitions include Ensorcelled English: Prestige Repellent, Goldsmiths Centre of Contemporary Art, London (2020); Confessions of a Thug: Pakiveli, Tramway, Glasgow (2020); Paranoid Picnic: The Phantom BAME, New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2019); Is This Tomorrow?, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2019); KNOCK KNOCK: Humour in Contemporary Art, South London Gallery, London (2018); 2018 Tiennial: Songs for Sabotage, New Museum, New York (2018); Nottingham Contemporary (2018); Production Show, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2017); and The Vanished Reality, Modern Art Oxford (2016).

Awards include being shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2018); and selection for Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2013).