ਬੈਠਕ (the blue room)
2022
Digital photograph
Portraits of Sikh Gurus painted by Sobha Singh became iconic from the ’70s onward in Sikh households around the globe. Sobha Singh was commissioned by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) in either the 1950s or the ’60s to create these images. These portraits are one of the most widespread relationships people in the Sikh diaspora have to artwork. Before these portraits by Sobha Singh, there were no photorealist paintings of Sikh Gurus in our collective consciousness. These paintings have created an indelible image in our minds of the Gurus. We no longer need to imagine what they might have looked like; they exist in our mind’s eye. Earlier renderings would have been made in folk-styles. The most common would have been Persian miniature painting, a style that creates a flat two-dimensional image. Simranpreet would like to capture the intimate familial spaces where these portraits hang in diasporic homes. Ideally, she would like to photograph these works in different diasporic communities: Surrey, Abbotsford, Brampton, Southhall, Nairobi, Yuba City and more.
Please get in touch with Simranpreet if you would like to participate in this project.