Chila Kumari Singh Burman British, b. 1957

Chila Kumari Singh Burman is a pioneering British artist whose radical feminist practice explores gender, cultural identity and representation through printmaking, painting, installation, film, and neon. A key figure in the British Feminist Art movement, Burman studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, developing a distinctive visual language rooted in her Punjabi heritage, working-class upbringing and personal mythology. In 2022, she was awarded an MBE and an Honorary Doctorate from the Slade.
 

Burman’s work is celebrated for its bold colour, political urgency and expansive vision of contemporary Britishness. Her acclaimed 2020 Tate Britain Winter Commission, Remembering A Brave New World (2020–21), transformed the façade of Tate Britain with illuminated imagery drawn from Hindu iconography, pop culture, and feminist history, becoming one of the defining public artworks of the pandemic period. The commission led to further large-scale public installations including Do You See Words in Rainbows? in Covent Garden (2021), Liverpool Love of My Life at Liverpool Town Hall (2022) and Blackpool Light of My Life at the Grundy Art Gallery (2023).

 

Working across public art, moving image, and immersive installation, Burman has collaborated with brands and cultural organisations including Netflix and Byredo, and has featured in documentaries for the BBC and Sky Arts. She represented Britain at the Havana Biennale and has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Spectacular Diversions at the Holburne Museum (2024), Beyond Pop at Compton Verney (2024), and Love Memoirs at the Nevill Holt Festival (2025). Forthcoming projects include I Love You, Southport at The Atkinson (2025), a restaging of The Thin Black Line at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (2025), and Chila Welcomes You at the Imperial War Museum North (2025). In 2024, she was also shortlisted for the Fourth Plinth commission.

 

Burnman's works are held in the collections of several significant institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum; National Portrait Gallery; Tate; Victoria and Albert Museum; Arts Council Collection; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Government Art Collection; and the Devi Art Foundation. The Tate Liverpool will be hosting a major retrospective of her work in 2027.