Bhajan Hunjan: speaking through materials

We’re delighted to present a solo exhibition from artist and long-time studio holder Bhajan Hunjan. Bhajan Hunjan: speaking through materials will, for the first time, bring together works from Hunjan’s rich and various career to date, spanning over 40 years of practice.

Hunjan’s ambitious and dextrous use of materials has tied together her practice both in and outside of the gallery. The exhibition will take us on a journey to explore this dexterity, bringing together print, painting, sculpture and collage from across Hunjan’s career. The show will also bring to light Hunjan’s innovation with materials within public art – such as silk-screen printed glass, laser-cut acrylic and metal, and stonework – together with documentation of the closely collaborative working process behind her public artworks. 

Guided by a unique visual language of line, rhythmic pattern and symbols, Hunjan’s work pushes the boundaries of meaning as well as materials, often speaking powerfully for women and diaspora communities. Drawing on her Kenyan upbringing, Sikh heritage and experience of moving to the UK in the 1970s, Hunjan’s work plays an important role in the history of women artists. She participated in the Black British Art Movement, exhibiting and curating alongside contemporaries, and has been included in numerous exhibitions and publications exploring the movement since, most recently in Tate Britain’s 2023 touring exhibition Women In Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990.

An accompanying publication, supported by the Paul Mellon Centre, will illustrate all exhibition works, for the first time celebrating Hunjan’s extensive work collectively in print. Newly commissioned essays will tell the stories behind her works, as well as commenting on the important contribution she has made to British art. A public programme will also accompany the exhibition, providing opportunities for all ages to further engage with Hunjan’s work.

                                   

About Bhajan Hunjan

Born in Kenya, Bhajan Hunjan moved to the UK in the mid-1970s to study at Reading University and the Slade. From the 1980s onwards she exhibited at spaces including the Indian Artists (UK) Gallery, Aspex Gallery, Brixton Art Gallery, Horizon Gallery and through the collective she co-founded, Panchayat. 

Hunjan’s work forms part of a wider search for visibility among South Asian and Black women artists in 1980s and 1990s Britain. Her experiences working at a South Asian women’s refuge in Reading deepened her focus on women’s interior lives and the dignity of representation. “My work at present is about my experiences, women, and in particular Asian women”, she stated in 1986. 

From the 1990s onwards, Hunjan turned increasingly toward public commissions – murals and large-scale floor works developed in collaboration with women’s and community groups, such as floorscapes in Leicester town centre and The Town Square, Slough, and the St. Paul’s Way Transformation project with Bow Arts in Tower Hamlets, London. Alongside, Hunjan worked extensively as an artist-educator across east London.

Hunjan’s contribution to feminist and diasporic art histories has gained renewed recognition through ‘Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990’ at Tate Britain, from which her work entered the Tate Collection, and through her shortlisting for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Her work is represented in major public collections including Tate, the British Museum, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery (Bradford), and Reading Museum & Art Gallery. 

Hunjan’s relationship with Bow Arts has been a long and collaborative one. Hunjan has worked as an artist-educator with Bow Arts since its inception and took part in one of the charity’s early Live Work spaces in 2007. She has developed numerous commissions for public artwork with Bow Arts and has held a studio in their P1 building since 2014.

Please click here to visit Bhajan Hunjan’s website.

Read more in our interview with Bhajan to mark our 30th anniversary:

Access information

The Nunnery Gallery and Cafe have step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system.

Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.

If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)

Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!)

Opening hours: Wed-Sun, 10am to 4pm

Address: Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ

Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.

Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.

Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.