CRYPTIC LINES

This conversation will provide an insight into the creative process behind Hardeep Pandhal’s solo exhibition Inner World. Using a mix of dip pen, Indian ink, brush and airbrushing the works on show are populated by recurring figurative forms and mark-making gestures. Named after a fake family name associated with his childhood: Pintoo, which was adopted when addressing strangers, Pandhal is building a personal world which he calls the Pintooverse, one that reveals the fragility of cultural identity, as well as the desire for self-definition.

The exhibition has given the artist the opportunity to use drawing as a means to connect unselfconsciously with his inner world. The volume and variety of drawings produced, often as a stream of consciousness, attest to the multiplicity and complexity of his influences and preoccupations. Anita is editor of the monograph ‘Hardeep Pandhal: Inheritance Quest’ (2024) and has a particular interest in artists with South and West Asian ancestry. This promises to be a very rich conversation around the generative potential of drawing.

Anita Dawood is an independent editor and editorial consultant. She has commissioned and developed publications for public institutions and commercial galleries, and worked collaboratively on artist’s books, in the UK, Pakistan and Hong Kong. She has also worked with the Government Art Collection on strategies for inclusive representations of British Art. Recent monographs edited by her include Hardeep Pandhal: Inheritance Quest and Rana Begum: Space, Light Colour. Anita was co-founder and co-director of the London-based, not-for-profit arts organisation Green Cardamom, which created new international platforms for artists from South and West Asia; and is a founding board member of the Art South Asia Project (ASAP) a grant-giving organisation aimed at developing the infrastructure around contemporary art in South Asia.

Hardeep Pandhal received his BA from Leeds Beckett University, Leeds in 2007 and an MFA from Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow in 2013. He had a solo show at Tramway, Glasgow (2020) and at New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2019). Pandhal was the recipient of a Drawing Room Bursary Award in 2015; these Awards were designed to provide opportunities for artists based outside London to spend time in the capital, to use the gallery as a studio to take risks with their work, to carry out research and to network. His work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions, including, most recently: New Art Gallery, Walsall (2023); British Art Show (2022-21), Goldsmiths Centre of Contemporary Art (2020). He was shortlisted for the Jarman Award (2018) and was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists (2021).