Mandeep Singh  ਮਨਦੀਪ ਸਿੰਘNaarm Based Artist

South Asian artist living, learning and working on unceded Wurundjeri land. Employing experimental photography and sculpture to explore themes of cultural and personal memory, Singh’s practice allows her to relearn her Sikh identity from a diasporic positionality. A major interest for Mandeep is collaboration, letting go of ego and allowing art to be made by multiple hands. This can elevate work and create a space for artists and materials to speak with one another.
Singh reinvents the past and present through diverse materials, often working with natural and found objects. 




















2026

Vesta, Solace, Chinatown Melbourne CBD.

Grained
, Balam Balam Place, Blak Dot Gallery, Brunswick.

2025

Bio(me), Melbourne Design Week, No Vacancy, Melbourne.

Waxing the Hearth
, KINGS ARI, West Melbourne.

2024

Mirages
, Changing Room Gallery, Carlton.

To Forever Ebb & Flow: Queer Time/Migrant Time, West Space, Collingwood Yards.

All You Do, Melbourne Design Week, Unassigned Gallery, Brunswick.

Menace Co. Launch, A-N Studio, Fitzroy

The Motley Sequinox, Changing Room Gallery, Carlton

SillyFest, Old Bar Gallery, Fitzroy






Powder Print 
As part of Vesta at Solace. 
 
  • Pink natural powder (Gulal) on floor.

This work challenges the boundaries between art and movement. A site specific installation - made by screen printing a silhouette of the artists dancing figure - explores the dance floor as an ever changing space for expression. Mandeep was interested in creating an ephemeral work, that allows for disruption and embodies movement as the space transforms from club, to gallery, to club once again. Mandeeps choice to use Holi powder in bright pink was a deliberate nod to her heritage as a Punjabi women, often using materials in reference to tradition and cultural expression. The work interacts with a performance by Charlie Poustie, a friend and collaborator of Mandeeps. Charlies dance interacts with the powder, moving it around the space and giving the audience permission to do the same.


Rice Water 
As part of Grained at Blak Dot Gallery. 
 
  • Mud and Wheat Paste on Paper

  • Rice Water is an
  • experimental video and
  • performance work. 
The work refers to the severe water crisis in Punjab caused by rice cultivation, where millions of litres of water are consumed annually for rice farming, leading to rapidly depleting groundwater. 

A video - on loop - depicts the artist washing rice, a rhythmic, ancestral tradition. The artist is seen drinking the rice water, a
subtle nod her own role in this historical narrative, and embodying themes of consumption. Alongside the video is a ‘mud print' of her Nani Ma’s rice farm in Punjab, where for generations her family has survived solely through agriculture. The property, is a reminder of when wheat and rice were a personal means of survival and nourishment, yet now may be a leading cause of drought and erasure.

Inspired by traditional folk/mud art from the province of Punjab soil becomes a medium and mode of exploration, challenging western archival conventions of permanence and sterility.

These prints sit at the intersection of personal narrative and broader cultural histories, asking: how can we
create archives that honour multiplicity, movement, and embodied ways of knowing?

Installation view: Documented by Lewis Catalano

Mud Print
  • Mud and Wheat Paste on Paper 

Mandeep has developed a technique of screen printing, that substitutes traditional inks with soil/mud. This is an ephemeral act of archiving and honouring landscapes that suround us.  



Tapestry
As part of Bio(me), Melbourne Design Week, No Vacancy Gallery. Curated by India Heath
  • Raw Cotton dyed with
  • Marigold and Lac, Screen
  • Printed with Mud, Marigold
  • Garlands.



Langar Hall
As part of Waxing the Hearth at KINGS ARI, Curated by Lucy Gordan & Ella Peck 
  • Oil on Canvas, Metal Thali, Cups

Undertsanding the imporatnce that kitchens play within diasporic community’s, this work remenisces on the importance of Langar within the Sikh community. Langar being a kitchen within Gurdwaras, where anyone - regardless of caste or background - eats for free. These kitchens are found around the world and feed up to hundreds daily. Langar is a spiritual practice, rooted in ideas of equality and humility as those who enter are seated on the floor with thalis awaiting their meal.
Honouring the Langar, a communal meal was free for all to eat on opening night. 


Documentation: Zara Phillips-Mason
Light Body ~ Water Body
Commissioned for the West Space Window as part of To Forever Ebb and Flow: Queer Time/Migrant Time, Curated by Aziz Sohail
Photographic installation, Marigold Garlands, Silver Anklets, Mala Beads 

Light Body ~ Water Body connects the natural landscapes of bodies of water, such as rivers and creeks, to ancestral bodies, with the recognition that one’s own body exists as an altar to our ancestors.
An image of Mandeep’s friend (or dost) and fellow South Asian artist and collaborator, Parminder Kaur Bhandal shimmers in the sunlight, resembling an enlightened body and soul, honouring traditional Sikh painting. Parminder moves between being both seen/unseen and belonging/un-belonging. In traditional Sikh and Punjabi ritual, water has an immense capacity to purify and cleanse our body and soul.

The work includes marigolds, woven as a garland, evoking traditional South Asian rituals. The garland incorporates native flora, demonstrating diasporic adaptation both as an artistic strategy and a form of survival for migrants and queer communities.”


Documentation: Kenneth Suico & Janelle Low
Glowing Water Body
In collaboration with Parminder Bhandal 

The figure radiating light, resembling an enlightened body and soul, reminiscent of sikh paintings.

Featured in a publication curated by Aziz Sohail.
Listed in Art Guide Australia, September 2024 Edition. 


Installation View
In collaboration with Parminder Bhandal 
  • On Site Installation on the Birrarung River, Wurundjeri
  • Country.


 Desi to Pardesi 
  • Laser Prints on Card and Wood

Exploring cultural and personal memory, this series burns an family photograph onto wood and cardboard. Burning as a method of printmaking reflects how one photograph within a limited family archive can hold space for important stories.