Juginder Lamba

Juginder Lamba was born in Nairobi in January 1948. Raised in a city under British colonial rule, Lamba’s childhood encounters were influenced by an international population of Africans, Asians, Americans, and Europeans. Ten years later, Juginder Lamba’s family moved to India. He attended Wynberg-Allen Memorial School, a boarding school in Mussoorie, with his brothers and sister for four years. In India, he was surrounded by art and architecture in temples and other ancient monuments adorned with sculptures from a past millennium. As a participant and observer of constant ceremonies, festivals and rituals, these scenes and colour permeated aspects of Lamba’s daily life.

In 1962, Juginder’s family moved to England where he adjusted to a new environment and culture. It was here that Lamba began painting. At seventeen years old, Lamba learnt of the mythical story of Icarus, and incorporated themes generated by this story into his artwork. For Lamba,’Icarus… encapsulates our impulses to soar above the material conditions and narrow explanatory historicism that assigns each to his /her proper place and to seek to incorporate these impulses into new strategies for survival and new expressions of hope’.
The myth of Icarus would later continue to become a major philosophical theme in Juginder Lamba’s sculptures.

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