At the ongoing Toy Face Tour, Delhi-based digital illustrator Amrit Pal Singh’s iconic non-fungible toys come to life in a playful synchronisation of virtual-meets-reality
The Toy Face Tour is the culmination of a project that digital illustrator Amrit Pal Singh started in the pandemic
How many of us, when we were younger, dreamed of shrinking to the size of a figurine and exploring the world through the lens of a toy? This is the fantasy that digital illustrator Amrit Pal Singh brings to life, but in reverse. His latest project, the Toy Face Tour, features the toy faces of famous personalities in dollhouse-like settings.
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“The project started in 2020, when the pandemic kicked in,” Singh explains. “A lot of us were spending our time online. People were talking about the concept of a digital identity. First, I started [these toy faces] as an illustration project, where I wanted to create diverse-looking avatars that represent people from all around the world.” The 33-year-old visual artist’s work was spotlighted when he designed an NFT—which he calls ‘non-fungible toys’—modelled on Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in 2021. Singh picked popular icons that 90’s kids could relate to, as he observed that a lot of the digital asset ownership was held by this group.
The first leg of the Toy Face tour, which is presented by the art gallery Method and the art marketplace Hefty Art, was held in Delhi and it opened to audiences in Mumbai on June 8. Singh describes it as a physical recreation of his digital art, a convergence of spaces in the virtual and the real world. Seven new toy faces will be on display, featuring artists Salvador Dali, Yayoi Kusama, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Amrita Sher-Gil, Piet Mondrian, and the iconic MF Hussain. But the highlight of the exhibition is the larger-than-life collector’s room which Singh designed from imagination. “For this show, I made a life-size collector’s toy room. People can get a tangible experience of my art.”
“MF Hussain is an artist I actually saw in person. He came to my school back in 2002, and painted in front of us,” Singh says, reminiscing about what inspired him to choose these particular artists. It was challenging to transform digital reproductions of furniture into actual real-life pieces, because the actual dimensions of space had to be considered. The toy room features creative, toy-like replications of iconic furniture pieces. Visitors can lounge on a huge Victorian-style couch in bright neon green, or sit on a rocking chair, or play around with a console table that’s inspired by the shape toy they played with as children. The furniture is made of teakwood, but simulates the colours and appearance of the shiny plastic objects that toys are made of.
Singh creates a toy face keeping in mind characteristics that can be attributed to a specific personality. The toy faces have been designed with a uniformity that stimulates the mass-production of toys, while, at the same time, retaining unique aspects of the icon’s identity—Frida Kahlo’s thick eyebrows or Mahatma Gandhi’s round glasses or Salvador Dali’s long moustache, for example. “Whenever I’m making toy faces, I choose certain elements that the viewer will see and understand immediately.” He adds that people are surprised and happy to see toy faces of artists they admired, as it evokes a sense of nostalgia. As for his own personal favourite NFT, Singh says it’s a neon-green samurai.
WHAT: Toy Faces Tour
WHEN: June 8-June 25, 11 AM to 6 PM. Closed on Mondays
WHERE: Method Kala Ghoda
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