In 2021 Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool Illuminations and Lightpool Festival co-commissioned new work from the internationally recognised artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman. The resulting piece, Blackpool Light of My Life took the form of a riotous display of multi-coloured new light works that that were installed on the front of Grundy Art Gallery. Informed by the artist’s Indian Roots and her Liverpudlian upbringing the work was described as a love letter to the town.
While a number of pieces from the original installation are now out on tour to other UK light festivals, an edited version of Blackpool Light of My Life will be presented on the front of Grundy Art Gallery for this year’s Lightpool Festival.
Elsewhere in the town, new work by Chila Kumari Singh Burman can be seen as part of this year’s Blackpool Illuminations who have commissioned a new large-scale feature by the artist called Lollies in Love with Life.
CHILA KUMARI SINGH BURMAN was born in Bootle, Merseyside to Punjabi-Hindu parents. She is celebrated for her radical feminist practice that, over four decades, has cohered around an ongoing examination of representation, gender and cultural identity. She works across a wide range of mediums including printmaking, drawing, painting, installation and film. A selection of her 2023 exhibitions include, Gwangju Biennale, Poor Things at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Light is Life, Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture, Pop South Asia at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, India, LLUM BCN Festival of Light, Barcelona. In 2020 Burman was commissioned to undertake the Tate Britain Winter Commission and in 2022 was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to visual art.
