Jain Spirit 2005 06 No22

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 52

ART & LITERATURE Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh, who paint together under the name of The Singh Twins', were born in London in 1966. Having studied traditional Sikh art and Indian miniatures, they felt keen in the 1990s 'to create a new language of symbolism to pass on to
wider audiences. Their painting 'God the Beloved (in which Krishna is portrayed in gouache and gold dust, adorned with a peacock feather and bordered by decorative, collaged wallpaper) celebrates divine beauty - with the feather reminding the viewer
'that ultimately you can't compete with God's creative power.' Their portrayal of a 'Sikh Wedding' exquisitely integrates contemporary and traditional motifs - bejewelled antique costumes, for example, alongside modern road traffic.
LE PRIRED NURRAYSA
Sikh Wedding The Singh Twins
Jane MacNeill, who was born in Aberdeen in 1971, says "I don't like it when the colours become bolder, I like things to be subdued and muted". Her ethereal paintings of heads are set against golden backgrounds and haloes, as in Christian icons. Sometimes her self-portrait heads have eyes wide open - rapt with enjoyment of the created world - and sometimes eyes closed - no less quietly ecstatic with mystical self
NOEN God the Beloved 1992, The Singh Twins
Woman and Angel Jane MacNeill
La de
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ANALLAMLILIT
The paintings of Farouq Molloy, who was born Sean Molloy in Plymouth in 1957,
are based in the Islamic VIR
calligraphic tradition yet have
an abstract delicacy that can WA
be related to modern western WANNAN VATAN NAKITA
artists, such as Paul Klee
and minimalist painters. The MANTAN EDIZIN
Name of Allah is repeatedly YAWAN
written in unregimented
lines and sometimes set HAWAWENANCUAR
against geometric colour field W ALANG
backgrounds, palpitating with Bu Untitled (from the Name of Allah Series) Farouq Molloy For Personal subtly exuberant beauty.
Faith is the kind of show which can reveal, and help heal, not only some of the wounds and controversies of an embittered, embattled art world, but also those of our shared, wider culture..
Philip Vann is author of Face to Face: British Self-Portraits in the Twentieth Century (published by Sansom & Co.Irary.org