About Kuch
Though his school art teacher described him as a natural artist, Kuch chose a different path and pursued medicine, becoming a consultant psychiatrist in 2016. Throughout his medical career, he continued to explore creative practices—writing, music, drawing, and painting—and also developed a strong interest in leadership, teaching, research, and service improvement.
In 2019, he co-founded the Open Minds Project with Taraki and Sarbat LGBT Sikhs, creating a supportive space for LGBTQ+ people of South Asian heritage in the UK. He went on to lead the space, designing and running peer support groups in London, Birmingham, and online. During this time, he also took on responsibilities such as funding applications, marketing, and event organization. As the project grew into The Suryan Collective CIC, Kuch eventually stepped away in 2024 to concentrate on developing his creative career.
Kuch likes to stay busy. While working as a psychiatrist and running the Open Minds Project, he also pursued a distance-learning undergraduate degree in art, focusing on music, painting, and illustration, graduating in 2024. Later that year, he left clinical practice to study Creative Technologies at Winchester School of Art. So far he’s enjoyed developing his coding skills, learning about critical theory as applied to technology and learning about so called artificial intelligence. So far the course is going well and this year he was lucky to recieve the Richard Newitt bursary for outstanding postgraduate achievement.
Kuch creates art as a way to process emotions and impulses. He embraces a body-led approach, believing it keeps his work grounded and emotionally honest. His art often explores sexuality as a source of feeling, grounded in the belief that joy and pleasure are essential to understanding how our bodies relate to others. He embraces imperfection and incompleteness in his work, seeing them as useful metaphors for the human experience.
He is curiously skeptical of the promise that algorithms might one day replace artists. He imagines a future where technology is shaped by values of community, care, and mutual interdependence. He hopes for a world in which people no longer see themselves as separate from the soil, air, and water that sustain life.
Qualifications
2024 - Bachelor of Arts Creative Arts (first), Open College of the Arts
2021 - Certificate in Positive Psychology and Coaching (merit), University of East London
2016 - Certificate in Teaching for Health Care Professionals (merit), University of Bristol
2005 - Bachelor of Medicine , University of Southampton
Public Speaking, Workshops and Teaching
2025
May - Panel Member for Taraki Conversation: Masculinity , Creativity and Mental Health. Live event in Southall, London.
2024
Jan - Workshop Series: Art as Self-Care – A 6 Week Online Course for LGBTQIA+ POC. The Open Minds Project.
Feb - Panel Guest: LGBTQ+ Pride. Pride Month, University of East London.
Feb - Art Exhibition: Critical Exchange Night. A Space Arts, Southampton.2023
Feb - Lecture: Dementia in Learning Disabilities. Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Feb - Art Lecturer: Medical Humanities Course. University of Southampton Medical School.
Mar - Panel Conversation: Sexual Wellbeing in Our Communities. LGBT Hero.
May - Lecture: Language, Identity and Belonging. JAAG Festival Birmingham.
May - Lecture: My experiences of doing an OCA degree – for foundation art students. Open College of the Arts.
Jun - Workshop: Solidarity, belonging and making space for contradiction – considering the successes and challenges of our community-based space. Outside/rs Conference, University of Sussex.
Aug - Lecture: Punjabi and Gay. YBS South Asian Heritage Month.
Sept - Guest Facilitator: Being LGBTQ+ and Punjabi. Taraki Mens Group.
Nov - ‘Mini-art comission’ as part of Dan Auluk’s Artist in Residence role with the University of Birmingham.
2022
Feb - Art Lecturer: Medical Humanities Course. University of Southampton Medical School.
Mar - Lecture: Intersectionality and Psychiatry. Basingstoke Psychiatry Academic Meeting.
Apr - Lecture: My experiences of doing an OCA degree – for foundation art students. Open College of the Arts.
May - Panel Guest: Mental Health in Our Communities. LGBT Consortium Racial Justice Network.
Jul - Lecture: What is Well-Being Anyway? Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust Wellfest Event.
Jul - Panel Guest: Finding Queer South Asian Voices in the Archive. The British Library.
Oct - Workshop: Intersectionality and the Value of Difference. Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation