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Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE

born 1957

TALL FLY GIRL! Auto-Portrait (Fly Girl series) 1993
© Chila Kumari Burman
License this image

Biography

Chila Kumari Singh Burman is a British artist, celebrated for her radical feminist practice, which examines representation, gender and cultural identity. She works across a wide range of mediums including printmaking, drawing, painting, installation and film.

A significant figure in the Black British Art movement of the 1980s, Burman remains one of the first British Asian female artists to have a monograph written about her work; Lynda Nead's Chila Kumari Burman: Beyond Two Cultures (1995).

In 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from University of the Arts London for her impact and recognised legacy as an international artist. In 2020, she was invited into the Art Workers' Guild as a Brother and in 2022, Burman was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to visual art.

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Artworks

Left Right
  • Triptych No Nukes

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1982
  • If There is No Struggle, There is No Progress - Uprisings

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1981
  • Cut - Foot - Pupil- Uprisings

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1981
  • Three Mug Shots in a Row

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1982
  • Red Riots on Indian Paper

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1981
  • Militant Women

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1981
  • TALL FLY GIRL! Auto-Portrait (Fly Girl series)

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE
    1993

Film and audio

  • Interview

    Chila Kumari Singh Burman – ‘Artists turn chaos into order’

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