Dan Auluk (b. 1970, Birmingham, UK) is a British-South Asian artist born, living and working in Birmingham. He graduated with an MA in Fine Art from The School Of Art, Birmingham City University, in 2014.
I often start by looking through old family photographs, videos, diaries and personal items I have kept over the years. I talk to my mother and my life partner about things we remember. These conversations, images and memories often lead me towards drawing, creative writing, text-based art, making videos or live performance works. Further to this I create live self-initiated exhibitions which look into ways in which we collaborate and communicate.
My art comes from my experiences of anxiety, grief, the fear of losing people I love and, more recently, joy.
Growing up queer, British and Punjabi in Birmingham in the 1970s and 1980s, I often felt I was moving between different worlds. At home there was my Punjabi family and culture. Outside, I was surrounded by a different idea of what being British meant. At the same time, I was discovering that I was queer and knew that this was something I needed to hide, to survive.
I became used to changing how I spoke, behaved and presented myself depending on who I was with. I was trying fit in being a Punjabi man, how to be British and how to live an authentic life, without feeling that these things could exist together. For a long time, they didn’t.
Making art has given me a way to return to these memories and experiences. I am interested in how memories change over time, how we remember the same things differently, and how something that once felt painful can take on a different meaning years later. I don’t always begin with a clear idea of what a work will become. Drawing, words, images, sound, spoken word and performance help me find my way into making.
More recently, I have been exploring queer joy. After spending so much of my life feeling that parts of myself needed to be hidden, making work about love, intimacy, visibility and happiness feels important to me. It is also a way of looking at my past from where I am now and hoping audiences can make connections that perhaps make them feel less isolated, othered or marginalised.
