Harminder Judge is an artist working across multiple media, especially performance, sculpture, painting and installation. He completed his BA at Northumbria University in 2005 and received a postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy Schools in 2020.
Harminder’s work has engaged with many subjects but there is a continuous exploration of portals, be it spiritual, political, or personal. His performance work has brought ancient Indian folklore and mysticism into direct contact with bombastic western pop music and live colour field painting; collided occult inspired dreamscapes with hazy laser penetrated reverse baptisms; transported field recordings made in his family’s Gurdwara in Punjab, across the world, replaying them through a speaker system lodged in his throat.
His sculptures and paintings engage with a history of abstract image making in India brought about through tantric ritual referencing both the internal and external body and our place within the cosmos. In his three installations to date he mined the collections of The New Art Gallery Walsall and found every image they owned which had a supernatural element, kickstarting an exhibition that tied these pieces to the writing of Edward Bulwer-Lytton; constructed a 3 screen video installation which explored a weekend in the life of his friend, conspiracy theorist and circuit bender Lee Stowers; and finally realised an outdoor video installation exploring the geographical and political ties between Coronation Park in New Delhi and Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire.
He also has an ongoing series of Self Portraits originally inspired by Kali, a powerful Hindu goddess entwined with tantric Shaivism, and Gene Simmons of Kiss.